Wolf
by Arkaidy
Summary: Sequel to 'Spider'. Kouga has been a bigger part of Aislin's life than she'll ever realize...
1. Memory

Wolf  
  
Part One, "Memory"  
  
by Vega  
  
A long time ago, when I was just a child, eleven, maybe twelve at the most, there was this man. I didn't know who he was. He stopped me on the street. It was autumn. He looked dirty and underfed. I wanted to walk away from him, because you know, I had watched all those safety videos in school and see the commercials with the animated bunnies and I knew that when a stranger stops and asks you something, you're supposed to walk away.  
  
But I couldn't walk away from him.  
  
I was with my friends at the time, and we were on our way to the movie theatre, and so I moved to step around me but his hand shot out, faster than I could see, and he grabbed my upper arm.  
  
"Girl," he said, and I was so shocked that he had grabbed me that I froze. "Girl," he said again, "You're one of them."  
  
"Them?" I said. I had no idea what he meant. Maybe he had been talking about my heritage - I was Japanese-American and I'd had problems when I was younger with a boy in school whose father had been a bigot and called me a worthless Jap half-breed. People didn't call me that anymore, but it had hurt at the time, and the sting was still memorable. "What do you mean, 'them'?"  
  
It was really strange.  
  
He stared at me hard, his eyes narrowing, his grip tightening and it began to hurt.  
  
"Let's go, Az!" one of my friends call, her eyes darting wildy around. She didn't know what to do. The other girl was cowering behind her.  
  
"You're one of them," the strange old man repeated and I saw him reach into his jacket pocket. My mind started to run a mile a minute - thoughts of a knife or a gun flashed through my head. He was going to kill me, or stab me, or kidnap me.  
  
Before I could see what it was that he had another voice, a younger fellow from what I could tell, cut in and said, "Let her go, Amphitrion."  
  
I craned my head around and saw the speaker - a kind face, long dark hair, and the most startling blue eyes I had ever seen.  
  
"Stay out of this, Youkai," the man who had hold of me, Amphitrion, said, "I'm going to purify her."  
  
"She doesn't need purifying," the young man said, and I could tell that he was annoyed. "She's fine, you old crazy."  
  
Amphrition snarled and I could see black gaps in his yellow teeth, could smell the sour food that was rotting between them. I gagged and turned my head away. The young man walked forward, and my friends took a few steps backwards, frightened. He put himself between Amphitrion and I.  
  
The old man slapped the young man's hand, the one that was prying the old man's fingers off my arm, and I saw something white and black stick to it. It looked like a rectangle of paper with strange oriental writing on it.  
  
"Youch!" the younger one cried out and jumped back a few steps. "You silly bugger! What was that for!"  
  
I didn't wait to hear the rest of the argument, as the small bit of commotion had weakened the older man's grip on me and I took off across the sidewalk, my friends on my heels. We tore down the block and ducked into the alley that ran along side the cinema we had originally been aiming for.  
  
I put my back against the dirty bricks and leaned over my bent knees, panting and wheezing. I had to take off my violet-tinted sunglasses because they were slipping down my nose.   
  
"What was that?" one of my friends asked, and I shook my head.  
  
"I have no clue." I looked up at them to see if they had any ideas, "You guys?" They shook thier heads and then the other girl said:  
  
"Geeze, Az, put your glasses back on. Your eyes freak me out."  
  
"Sorry," I mumbled and slipped the tinted glass back onto my face.  
  
"They don't freak me out," called a voice from the mouth of the alley and I looked up to see that it was the young man that had rescued me. "I think they're very pretty."  
  
He was slightly red in the face, obviously he had been running as well. His bangs had flown back over his forehead and his ponytail was mussed from the wind. He was dressed in a bright red turtleneck and blue jeans, with black combat boots, which I found very odd. No one wore turtlenecks with blue jeans anymore.  
  
On top of that, he had a black leather duster on, looking far too heavy for the mild September climate. He looked like he was trying to hide something.  
  
I straightened and walked over to him, despite my friend's pulling on my sleeves to prevent it. "Thank you," I said softly, look up into his face. He flashed me a smile and I could see the small pointed incisors that pressed against his smooth bottom lip.  
  
"You're welcome, Sister," he grinned, oozing charm. Then he reached up and pulled my glasses off my face, gently, by the nose-piece. I could see that there was a small burn on his skin from where the strange man had slapped him with the rectangular scrap of paper. "Don't cover your eyes up - they're what make you special."   
  
He folded the arms under the lenses and handed the glasses back to me. I held them in my hands, marvelling at the warmth his touch had transferred to the them.  
  
Then, without so much as a 'see ya', he turned around and walked away, his black ponytail swaying in the breeze, and his hands in his duster pockets. My friends came up behind me, staring over my shoulder. I couldn't tear my eyes off him. I would have watched him forever if he hadn't rounded the corner and walked out of my line of sight.  
  
"What a weirdo," one of them said, and the other agreed.  
  
"I don't know," I whispered, "he looked kinda cool to me."  
  
"Whatever," my friends tugged on my wrists to try to prod me towards the movie theatre. "Let's go."  
  
I broke away from them, running after the young man, my glasses clutched in my hands. I don't know why I was running after him. I think I just wanted to see his smile again. I turned the corner that I had seen him go do and stopped - he had vanished.  
  
Whipping my head around I frantically searched for him, but without success.   
  
He was gone.  
  
Shaking my head, I walked back to the theatre and went through the motions of buying my ticket and taking a seat. But while the movie played, I was watching something else. I had my eyes closed and was reliving the moment he had touched me over and over in my head - his fingertips had brushed my forehead when he had taken off my glasses, and his palm had touched mine when he had handed them to me.  
  
His presence had set off electric sparks in my skin.   
  
His scent made my nose twitch deliciously. He smelled better to me than any gourmet meal ever could. He smelled of summer wind and pine trees, of musky male and a spicy cologne, and underneath all of that, a pure and shimmering scent, electric blue in my mind, powerful and heated. He had smelled like passion.  
  
As he was walking away, I had noticed something else, too. Something that I didn't mention to my friends. Poking out from behind the split in the back of his black leather duster had been a little fluff of brown, which, for some reason, looked to me like a tail.  
  
When the movie was over I bid my friends an early goodnight and spent the rest of the evening, before my curfew, wandering the streets downtown, trying to find this strange young man with the black ponytail and leather jacket.  
  
I couldn't find him.  
  
Wherever I went, for the next few years, I kept my eyes open, hoping to catch a glimpse of the young man who had saved me, but I never saw him again. I looked, though. I looked.  
  
When I got old enough, I started dating men that reminded me of him - men with long dark hair and blue eyes - but their hair just never seemed to shine the way his had, and their eyes were never blue enough. They all looked too Caucasian; the man I fantasized about had been Asian. None of them had furry brown tails, or pointed eyeteeth. None of them smelled like summer wind and cool water and blue passion.  
  
I started dreaming about him at night, this strange fellow, and wondering where he was now, and what he was doing. Wondering if he even remembered who I was.  
  
And then one night I went to sleep, and woke up on a strange futon in a bizarre room, a Young Feudal Lord by my side, with long black hair so much like my mystery man's and brown eyes that shone red, and little memory of who or why I was.  
  
And the Feudal Lord's kisses were dusty and bitter, and in time I forgot that I had ever loved this mystery man at all. I forgot all about him until that night when I made love to the Prince of the Wolves....  
  
... then knew in an instant that I had found him. 


	2. Cave

Wolf,  
  
Part Two: "Cave"  
  
by Vega  
  
The day that I awoke in that cave, three people's whole worlds changed.  
  
The hikers were a pair of friends who had decided to go 'rough it' for the weekend. The mountain range was advertised by various companies as one of the more eco-pure spots on the island. The boys, both in university, were also historical scholars and had wanted to explore the specific set of caves I had been found in due to it's connection with a certain rebellious group of people during the Meji Era.  
  
These men were samurai of a fashion, it seemed, and supported the old government system that the wars were attempting to usurp, the Tokugawa. Their Daimyo, a young and rash Lord, according to the history books, had refused to give back his land when the Emperor Meji in1868 declared a law obliging him to, when the Capital of Japan was moved from Kyoto to Tokyo. They were therefore set upon by the new western-style military that the government of Japan was using to try to westernize the small country, and therefore create a comparable world-power out of it.  
  
This particular band of samurai called themselves the Ookami Tribes, and hid out in the mountain ranges, desperately and futilely clinging to the past. When the military found them, most of the samurai had already fled into the cities and anonymity, or turned themselves in. All that remained were the Daimyo, their leader, two of his must trusted retainers, and the wife of one of the men.  
  
They fought bravely, the text books say, and honourably. Unfortunately, katana were no match for pistols, and the woman, and two retainers were shot dead. The young Daimyo was captured and bound, taken to the Emperor himself for trying, and his lands seized by the government.  
  
When the corpses of the dead samurai and the woman were removed from the cave, it was rumoured that the men's bodies had transformed into those of blood-matted wolves. Stories began to fly around that these were not men at all, but Youkai, and that's why they had been so hard to kill. Many Japanese saw this as a bad omen for the country - this demolition of sacred beings.  
  
Counter-rumours were spread by the government, saying that Youkai were nothing more than the figments of an earlier era's fairy tales and that the samurai had merely been wearing wolf fur to blend into the environment and to keep themselves warm.   
  
Rumour also stated that as the woman's corpse was carried away, a girl-child ran screaming out of the cave, crying, to the Daimyo's side. The Daimyo begged for the soldiers to not part him from his best friend's child, and both were taken to the court of the Emperor.  
  
There the girl was separated from the young Daimyo and sequestered in the inner imbroglio of the court, where the women belonging to the emperor remained. She grew up, history claims, with little memory of her former mountain home, and as a Hime, or Princess, of the highest rank.  
  
Rumour also had it that the girl had hair the colour of fire and eyes that seemed to glow like a wolf's in the night. Paintings of the woman also always showed her with her hair styled elaborately to always cover the top of her head, and her ears, and despite court fashion, no record of the woman ever wearing earrings was ever found.  
  
Eventually the Emperor gave her away to a powerful business man in the Kyoto district for a political alliance, and it is said that they lived a happy and prosperous life, and that her daughter married well, too, and that her granddaughter was a famous Geisha in the Kyoto District.  
  
  
  
As for the Daimyo, the Emperor was said to have locked him away for many years in a small cell with an even smaller window that only allowed moonlight in when the moon itself was full. Rumour states that the Daimyo was heart-stricken with the loss of his friends and the little girl and spent many nights howling like a madman at the silver orb that passed over the bars of his cage.  
  
Gaurds spoke of him stalking the sides of his prison constantly, like a discontented wild animal, just waiting to leap out at his keepers. They say he seemed to restrain himself, and just barely at that, because he seemed like although capable of hurting people, he did not WANT to.  
  
Three years to the day after the Emperor had the Daimyo imprisoned, he had the man released and brought to his great hall. The young man, who remarkably had lost none of his beauty and robust health, was thrown prostrate before the Emperor and forced to apologize.  
  
It took some doing to keep him on his knees.  
  
Now, The Emperor's Chief Councillor of Luxury, who was known within court circles for indulging sporadically in sodomy, was said to have been caught with a fancy for the prisoner, and that night when the guards were to escort the young man back to his tiny cell, the Councillor bribed them handsomely to deliver him to his own private chambers instead.  
  
As the story goes, the Councillor debased and had his way with the young Daimyo.  
  
In the morning when the guards came to fetch the prisoner to take him back to the Emperor for sentencing, the Councillor was found dead on his bed, his throat torn out by some wild beast, his genitals completely removed, spat out upon the floor in a masticated mess, and his window smashed outwards as if someone had crashed through it to escape.  
  
The young Daimyo was never seen again, and rumours that the Daimyo and his two Samurai had been Ookami Youkai surfaced again. People feared for their Emperor's life, for he had been uncourteous to a sacred being.  
  
Eventually, the rumours died away when the expected youkai's vengeance against the Emperor did not come, and people chose instead to believe the court's word that it was just a freak coincidence that the Councillor had been attacked that night.  
  
The two university boys, having read this hap-hazard history in class, piecing together much of the details from digging that they had done on their own, had decided to take a long weekend and hike up to the fabled cave and try to discover if there were any traces left that might either prove or disprove any of the truths in the story.  
  
Instead they found me, dressed in an un-tied, ragged and filthy sky blue kimono, woven in the style of the mid-Sengoku Jidai, the Warring States Period of Japan, crying and screaming out a long forgotten name, flushed and feverish from the infection that had set in on my wounds, and just about ready to pass out.  
  
  
  
They had stayed with me, called 911, tried to find this man that I repeatedly cried out for with no luck, and when I went to the hospital, took it upon themselves to contact my nearest relatives themselves.  
  
Of course, I had no ID on me, no wallet, no driver's licence, and to them I looked like a gaijin - a foreigner. The police could do nothing, and I was in too much of a delirium from the morphine and the other drugs that I couldn't give them any names.  
  
The boys took my picture, digitally edited out my bruises, and posted my face all over the Japanese-speaking internet. Eventually a man called them, his voice sounding almost unnaturally deep and smooth on the phone, and identified himself as 'Maru Sesshou', a business man, and claimed that the lost Jane Doe on their website was indeed his niece, who had vanished several months earlier.  
  
The man, who turned out to be a very handsome man in his mid thirties with long white hair, and was also very rich when they met him in person to get him to prove that he was who he said he was, insisted that they take a reward for finding his niece. They declined, but found their tuition completely paid off for the rest of their acedemic careers when next they went to pay off their student loans.  
  
Mr. Maru also inquired as to how exactly it was that they found themselves at that particular cave, and when the boys told him about the story of the Daimyo and the little girl that had survived the massacre, and their urge to discover wether or not there was any truth to the tales, Mr. Maru's face grew grim and he handed them both business cards on which he scribbled "6pm, Saturday," along with an address.  
  
The boys showed up where and when the cards said, only to find themselves in an empty warehouse, alone, with a young man they did not recognize standing in the shadows cast by poor lighting and piles of dusty and forgotten wooden crates.  
  
"I heard you know the story about the Ookami Daimyo," the young man said, and as he stepped into the light the boys could see that his eyes were an unnaturally bright shade of blue. "You're looking for proof that the Ookami Tribe Samurai actually lost their lives in that cave?"  
  
The boys had split a look between themselves, nervous. This was the sort of situation that led to headlines on the eleven o'clock news. But they were deathly curious, nonetheless, and stayed.  
  
The young man pulled something long and dark from the inside of his leather duster, from a belt at his side, and both the boys took a few shaky steps backwards when they realized what he held were two katana. The young man did not unsheathe them, but walked forward and pressed one into each of the boy's hands.  
  
"This belonged to Hakkaku," the young man told the first boy, who looked down at the lacquered green sheath. It was in astonishingly good condition. "He was rash and sometimes stupid, but his heart was pure." The young man turned to the second boy and pressed the red-clad sword into his hands, "And this one was Ginta's. He was a good, good man, and a good father. They both died with honour."  
  
Both the boys itched to pull the blades from the wood but refrained out of awe and respect for the swords before them.  
  
"You must swear to me that these swords will not be used for any sort of evil," the young man then intoned, "but for academic purposes instead. I will know if you do not, and you will not like it. I know the stories of the Wolf Samurai are real, but I want you to prove it to History."  
  
He then reached into his pocket and withdrew a very old, very battered Buddhist rosary made of hand-blown glass beads. "This once belonged to a wise and gentle Miko named Kaede. She was Ginta's wife. It once was the rosary that the Miko Kagome kept the Shikon no Tama on for safe keeping, as well. Kaede-sama died along side her husband. The child from the legends' name was Kitsu, if you can find record of her."  
  
The boy holding Ginta's sword curled his wrists and pressed the weapon tightly against his chest, his eyes wide and his breath caught in his throat. "What about the Daimyo? What's his name?"  
  
The young man just smiled a weak and lopsided smile, one bizarrely long incisor poking out of his mouth and pressing on his lower lip. With that, the young man turned on his heel and walked towards the door.  
  
"Wait!" the first boy, the possessor of Hakkaku's sword, called out. "How do you know all this!? What proof do you have?!"  
  
The young man stopped, and, without turning around, tapped the side of his head with his index finger. Then, in a voice barely loud enough to carry, said, "Because I watched them fall."  
  
When the heavy warehouse door banged shut, it's metallic echos were the only sounds to penetrate the silence for almost five straight minutes.  
  
Then the boys rushed out of the empty building and down the dimly lit street that it bordered, hoping to find the strange young man in the leather duster. He was nowhere in sight.  
  
They returned to the university the next day with their treasures, and within a year proved that this Kaede, Kitsu, Hakkaku, and Ginta had indeed existed and found some of their names referenced as far back as the Sengoku Jidai, in the scrolls of a Houshin named Miroku.  
  
  
  
They were unable, of course, to prove that Ginta and Hakkaku were actually the Ookami Youkai that legend stated they were, despite their best efforts, and were never again able to track down the strange dark-haired young man who HAD to be, in their opinions, the lost Youkai Daimyo.  
  
They even tried to call Mr. Maru again, but his phone number seemed to have been disconnected as soon as he had finished his meeting with them.  
  
And the young woman they had saved in the mountains vanished from the general hospital in Tokyo - when they inquired as to her whereabouts the nurses and reception could only say that she had been moved to a private rehabilitation centre, and that her Uncle has left them his thanks, and a note telling them to check their student loan balances.  
  
I, of course, knew nothing about this, as I spent most of those first few months back in a drugged stupor, or under the knife of a cosmetic surgeon, or in the arms of the Daimyo. 


	3. GreatGrandmother

Wolf  
  
Part Three: "Great-Grandmother"  
  
by Vega  
  
Aislin Volpe is my great-granddaughter.  
  
We worried about her father, initially, my grandson, well... because he was a grand SON. Never before had the firstborn of The Bloodline been a MALE. We wondered if the Shikon Shard by default had remained inside of Yuki, my daughter, but when we brought Kakera in to sense it out, no, the shard had indeed moved into Okami's body.  
  
We wondered if that's where the line stopped - if Okami was destined to be the Traveller and if he was, how would they remove the shard with permanently crippling or even killing him? Was he destined to even survive the ordeal?  
  
The years came and went and Okami remained with us.   
  
And so did the Shard.  
  
We began to think, to hope, that perhaps it was not he who was destined to travel backwards in time to deliver the Shikon Shard to the Miko Kagome.  
  
When he met the American exchange student, Suza, we were unsure wether she should be allowed into the family. Yes, we were a bloodline of mixed peoples, of ningen, and youkai, and hanyou, and sometimes something in between. But never before had we had a Gaijin - an outsider.  
  
She wouldn't know about anything, we realized. She'd know nothing of the glorious histories of our ancestors, of the legends of the family, of the living mythology that we were. She wouldn't even know hot to properly address Uncle Sesshoumaru and Papa Shippou, the Taiyoukai we were all descended from.  
  
But Okami loved her, and in the end, that's all that mattered.  
  
He convinced her that Japan, rather than the United States, is where their new family should start, and she readily agreed. She loved Japan and threw herself headlong into the culture, willing to eat everything, go anywhere, wear whatever.  
  
Her family came over for the wedding, and I was pleased to meet such fascinating people. I had rarely met gaijin, and really only knew Dominic Volpe, my son-in-law, and his family. And he was Italian.  
  
After the marriage celebrations had completed, Okami felt it time to tell his new wife of the rather 'special' circumstances of our family. He broke it to her easily, talking about how some people are different, and some have life-long missions, and things like that.  
  
He explained that our family had a long and illustrious history involving no fewer than three Princes and several Great Lords. Suza was thrilled to be connected to such a wonderful heritage. Emboldened by her enthusiasm, he went on to explain that his own biological heritage wasn't exactly pure. She though he meant his Japanese-Italian ancestry.  
  
That was when I was called in, with my wooden case of paintings and photographs. I had Suza and Okami stand beside one another and smile for my little marvel of a Polaroid camera, then opened the case and began to tell her about the history of the family she had married into.  
  
About half way through my own life, she stoped, her face white with red splotches high on the cheeks, and said, "This is some sort of joke, right?"   
  
With a silent signal from my grandson, I obligingly unwound my hair-buns to reveal my two pointed fox ears. I even swivelled and twitched them for her benefit, to prove that they were real.  
  
She grew entirely white, her lips taking on a blueish tinge, and excused herself to the bathroom. I head the ugly retching sounds and assure Okami that it was just a lot for her to take in all at once. That she would understand.  
  
That was my mistake, of course: assuming she would understand. A Japanese woman, brought up in a culture rich in mysticism and acceptance of the supernatural, would consider herself blessed to discover that most of her husband's kin are youkai.  
  
This American, however, was entirely resistant to the idea.  
  
Not that I am insinuating that all American are incapable of accepting differences - but Suza could not stand it. She called us 'freaks' and 'monsters', and bid us never visit her household again. Out of respect for the strife Okami was experiencing, we honoured her request.  
  
There were fights in that house everyday from that day forward.  
  
Suza filed for divorce within three months, and Okami would have gladly granted it to her. He was still very much in love with her and just wanted her to be happy. I think Suza still loved him as well, but she could not deal with the knowledge that we had shattered her safe little 'normal' reality, and it currently lay around her ankles.  
  
However, we discovered, due to one visiting relative's (who was acting as Okami's lawyer) nose - Suza was pregnant. She had not been just queasy the day Okami told her what we were because she had been distraught. It had been morning sickness.  
  
Uncle Sesshoumaru, the family Patriarch, declared that until the child was born, Suza would remain a member of our family. If the child did not posses the Shikon Shard, the paperwork would be pushed through double time and Suza would leave Japan - and probably without her baby. It would be of mixed race, after all, and none of us wanted the child in the hands of one who may abuse it.  
  
Az, however, WAS born with the Shikon Shard, and Suza was not allowed to leave.  
  
We did not hold her prisoner, by any means.  
  
She and Okami moved to the United States and she pretended desperately that she was 'normal' and that her beloved child was 'not a freak' - she even went so far as to give Aislin violet-tinted sunglasses to wear every day of her life to dull the brightness of her eyes, as early as age two.  
  
Eventually, the stress of the living situation ate away at my grandson, and Okami sprouted a bad stomach ulcer which opened the door for a painful stomach-lining cancer. He was gone within five months of the first diagnosis.  
  
The funeral was hard on us all, as it was held in the United States, and not all of us could make it. I made a point of going, buying my great-granddaughter new shoes for the event and bringing along my wooden case of family portraits.  
  
I had wanted to give the case to Aislin to keep, so she would forever remember her father's side of the family, but her mother wrenched it away from the little girl and tossed it back at me.  
  
Immediately following the funeral Suza took Az and vanished.  
  
Had our Aislin not been The Traveller, we probably would never have seen her, nor her offspring, ever again. Fortunately, those two ningen boys happened to be hiking right where Az re-appeared and saved her life. I thank Kami heartily for their intelligence to post her picture on the internet, and pray for them twice a day.  
  
When my Az came back to us, she was a ruin.  
  
Her right arm was nearly completely destroyed and even the doctors said it was a miracle that she could still move her fingers. She had several lacerations, scars across her torso that had sealed messily, and two cracked ribs that were healing wrong. One of her toes needed to be broken and reset, as did one of the ribs.  
  
For a long time, Az lay in a drug induced stupor, and I'll admit I signed all the papers necessary to keep her that way. She had been through a great ordeal and was not ready to face the real world just yet. She had suffered some sort of loss while she was away, and although I did not know what it was, I could smell her melancholy, even through the haze of the morphine.  
  
The doctors informed us, Uncle Sesshoumaru and I, that first night we got to see her, of a small problem.  
  
He pulled us out of her room and into his own private office, which had me slightly worried and Sesshoumaru-sama less so.  
  
"Listen," the doctor said, clutching the yellow manila folder with Aslin's charts in it, "I don't know how long your niece was missing, sir, but... she's been very battered around."  
  
Sesshoumaru's golden eyes narrowed threateningly, warning the doctor not to step on eggshells. "How badly?"  
  
"Several broken bones, mostly healed by now, a seriously sprained ankle and a wrenched knee - both about a month healed, although neither were set properly. We're taking care of that now. Multiple contusions on her torso and arms; a severely blackened eye at one point, resulting in the burst blood vessels you can see right now. Punctures in her upper right arm, possibly the result of a large dog - severe burning of her right arm that could only have been caused with an excellerant."  
  
"Excellerant?" I interrupted.  
  
"Someone probably dumped gas on her and deliberately set her on fire," the Doctor dead-paned, and I had to cover my mouth to keep in the gasp of horror. "There's also a mild concussion in her history, but I'd say three weeks ago at least. Her lips have been split several times, probably from being slapped, and her left earlobe has been torn. Lastly..." the doctor trailed off and stared down at his feet, suddenly uncomfortable, "Lastly she has been... uh... sexually assaulted."  
  
Sesshoumaru growled and I placed a gentle hand on his arm to remind him that it was not this doctor's fault, and it would do no good to go on a tear here. The growl died out and the Doctor just stared at my uncle with wide eyes.  
  
"How... badly...?" Sesshoumaru demanded, eyes like hardened amber.  
  
"It was big, whatever it was," the doctor said softly, "roughly the width of a human arm - the tearing indicates that she began to heal from it, but most of them were re-opened, er..." he glanced quickly at the sheet on the inside cover of the folder, "as early as the night before she was brought to hospital. We've seen to most of her injuries, and done as must stitching as was needed for her sexual injuries, but ... there is something else the hospital would like you to know, sir."  
  
Sesshoumaru was contemplating black deeds, and we could both see it. "What?"  
  
"We... found... two things inside of her."  
  
"Things?" I asked. No - it couldn't be. She had been gone for so long - she HAD to have given the shard to the Miko Kagome! It couldn't still be inside her!  
  
"One was a... a piece of glass," the doctor said, and went over to his filing cabinet. He unlocked the top drawer and withdrew a small test tube, corked, and sure enough, there lay a sliver of the Shikon no Tama in it's rounded bottom.   
  
Sesshoumaru wordlessly held his hand out for it and the doctor only reluctantly gave it over.  
  
"And what was the second...?" the taiyoukai prompted.  
  
"The second was... seamen."  
  
Both our eyebrows raised.  
  
"Your niece is not pregnant," he assured us hastily, "and we sent samples to a lab - the rapist has no previous DNA record that we could find, I'm sorry."  
  
There was a thoughtful pause.  
  
"I want that too," Sesshoumaru suddenly demanded, catching both the doctor and I off guard.  
  
"What for?"   
  
"I pay you enough to not ask questions," the taiyoukai snapped and the doctor immediately bowed and scuttled out of the room.  
  
We waited in silence for him to return, neither of us saying a word. When he handed the vial filled with half-coagulated white liquid (it have been frozen, apparently, so was still in liquid form) Sesshoumaru immediately uncorked it and took a steady whiff of it's scent.  
  
The doctor looked about ready to be ill, but I understood - he wanted to know whose it was, and if he recognized the scent, he may be able to track the youkai down and find out what had happened, and why he had slept with our precious Traveller.  
  
After a moment he closed his eyes, smirked a little and shook his head.  
  
I raised one eyebrow in question.  
  
He turned to me and in the growling language of a canine youkai said, "It's that goddamned wolf."  
  
~~~  
  
When Az was finally well enough to start being conscious for short periods of time, I made sure never to leave her side. Others came and went, of course, the whole family saw her at least twice. But we did not call her mother - Suza had not called us, looking for her daughter, and as distressing as Az's disappearance may be for Suza, we knew that it had to be Az herself that called her mother to explain, because anything we said would be taken as a lie. As much influence as our family's name and money is in Japan, we doubt it would have much effect on American authorities.  
  
Sesshoumaru sent one of my nephews out, a week to the day after our meeting with the doctor, to try to track down Kouga.  
  
If his intentions had been honourable, the Wolf may escape a confrontation with Sesshoumaru with his balls still attached. If it had not been, the Last Prince of the Ookami Youkai would join his brethren.  
  
~~~  
  
I have been watching over Az for two weeks now, and still no word from my nephew on the wolf's whereabouts, or wether he is even living or dead.  
  
Az has begun to mumble his name in her sleep - I take this as a good sign and hope that means that their encounter was consensual.  
  
We have moved Az out of the general hospital and into a private rehabilitation centre that specializes in restorative cosmetic surgery and a comfortable family environment. I can smell the terminally ill dying from here and it reminds me tragically of Okami.  
  
Humans are such fragile things.  
  
Was it not for Az's youkai blood, I suspect she would be long dead.  
  
I yearn for her to wake up fully so we can learn what has happened.   
  
Perhaps Kouga will be able to fill us in.  
  
It is a hope.  
  
~~~  
  
Az has begun to open her eyes - it's into the fourth week now.   
  
Uncle Sesshoumaru has things to do of course, so is in and out of the little hospital room, but I remain by her side constantly, oft times accompanied by one or another of the Others. She has been mumbling more now, muttering of silver sights and sounds, of pain and sandalwood, and a man named Kagewaki.  
  
My heart wrenches every time she flings up her hands and screams, "Please, no! Get off me!" because I cannot enter her dreams and help soothe away her nightmares.  
  
All I can do is hold her hand.  
  
~~~  
  
It's going on week seven, and still no word about Kouga.   
  
Today Az opened her eyes and looked at my face, then down at her hand in mine and said, "Great-grandmother..."  
  
I nodded, dabbing at the tears in my eyes and said, "Yes Aisilin, that's who I am. You remember me, thank Kami..."  
  
"I hated those shoes," she whispered and I had to laugh. She smiled weakly, her eyelids dropping already and whispered "...you're a hanyou..."  
  
She nodded off and again and I stared in wonder.  
  
She knew what I was.  
  
~~~ 


	4. Sesshoumaru

Wolf  
  
Part Four: "Sesshoumaru"  
  
by Vega  
  
When the wolf was found, I had him sent directly to my private office in my home.  
  
I was dealing with a crotchety philanthropist at the time over the phone, so he wolf was forced to wait outside of the heavy cherry doors that lead into my dark-panelled abode. I had made certain that this office, crammed with scrolls and tomes far older than myself even, had been made comfortable and inviting, as I spent a good majority of my days there.  
  
No longer did Sesshoumaru, Taiyoukai of the Western Lands, roam the borders of his estate on four legs, slaying those who would dare infringe upon his ancestral claim. Now he sat behind a desk with a phone attached to his ear, conducting shrewd and sometimes not-entirely-legal business with ningen and youkai alike.  
  
Ah, but when the moon called, I answered and walked as I once did, along the places where my protection and barrier spells faded into those of the other three Regional Taiyoukai. And as I walked I closed my eyes and remembered all those fallen - Rin, inquisitive and bright, completely trusting, lost to a handsome young lord and his soft beckoning hands.  
  
Jakken, the toad demon, who had spat at me in the end, denouncing me as a weakling and declining to serve me further once the Miko and my Half-Brother had purified my heart with the Shikon no Tama and I had sworn off the paths of evil forever.  
  
Of course, becoming a force of good did not remove my violent and possessive streak, and I instead focussed on nurturing the land by performing the necessary sacred rites which I had been previously neglecting, and making sure that my nieces and nephews were reared correctly.  
  
It annoyed Inu Yasha to no end when 'Uncle Sess' arrived unexpectedly at the door of the house that he and the Miko shared on the edge of the forest named for him with yet another new practice sword or quiver of finely made eagle-youkai quill arrows for the pups, and the ever-present pocket-full of sweets.  
  
My half-brother swore a similar vengeance on me when my own pups were born, but alas he did not live to see the day. When his grand-pups were fully grown and seeking mates of their own, Kagome passed into eternity and stung by this separation, Inu Yasha pulled the last of the Shikon no Tama's power into his own body, wished himself human, and died of a broken heart shortly thereafter.  
  
To this day I have not taken a mate of my own, nor have I sired pups. But I am content. I am a long lived creature and have many good decades ahead of me before I must think to settle down. In the meantime, I have Inu Yasha's growing number of progeny to tend to.  
  
Like this Aisilin Volpe.  
  
A direct descendant from Inu Yasha and Kagome's eldest child and only son, Souta, she was the one destined to be The Traveller, and fulfill Kagome's dying prophecy that one of her line would eventually follow her path and visit the past, to supply Sango with the Shikon Shard that had been placed in her womb to prevent Naraku's curse on Miroku to propagate.  
  
Sango and Miroku's daughter, Yumirin, inherited the Shard from her mother, and when she wed Souta and their first daughter was born, Kakera, the Shard for which she was named was passed onto her as well. And thus is went, until Aisilin was pulled backwards in time by her intense wish to save the lives of her demon-slaying ancestors, and was dropped directly in the midst of the battle between Naraku and those who pursued him.  
  
When I had finally finished my phone call with the philanthropist, I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes, steepling my long slender fingers. I took a deep breath through my nose and analysed the scent that seeped under my door jamb - the scent of the wolf.  
  
He was scared, I could tell, as well he should be. There was fear in his scent.   
  
I was Inu Yasha's brother, and the Taiyoukai of the Western Lands. Moreover, he knew that I had summoned him here over an issue that had me greatly concerned. What that issue was remained undisclosed to him, and my keen dog-like ears could almost make out the sounds of his brain strumming overtime in an effort to deduce what the problem was.  
  
Along with the sharp sour undercurrent of fear bobbed the sweet and clear scent of hope, and the salty tang of nervousness. There was also the meaty smell of self-confidence and arrogance, but that was accepted as a part of the Wolf Prince's normal musk, just as it had made up a large portion of Inu Yasha's.  
  
He was also wearing a slightly cloying spicy cologne and I wondered if he did so to attract ningen females, or to hide his distinctive youkai scent from other less powerful demons than I.  
  
Satisfied that he had been waiting long enough to keep him unbalanced, I called the helpful young kitsune youkai woman whose desk lay outside my office doors and bid her let him enter.  
  
I expected the doors to slam backwards and Kouga to rush my desk snarling. Instead he waited for the young woman to open one of the doors for him, bowed politely in thanks, and approached me calmly.  
  
If it weren't for his scent, I wouldn't know he was worried at all.  
  
Hm. I allowed myself a small smirk of appreciation, and enjoyed his slight falter when he saw it - a smile on my face was often a precursor to something less agreeable. He stopped a respective distance off, his leather duster held loosely under one arm, and bowed to me.  
  
"Konichiwa, Sesshoumaru-sama," he said softly.  
  
"Konichiwa, Ookami-sama," I said back and gestured for him to sit. He declined with a small shake of his head.  
  
"I thank you, but I am rather more comfortable standing."  
  
My eyes narrowed, but he held his ground. "Fine then," I stood and walked smoothly over to my sideboard. My white hair, bound at the nape of my neck, flowed behind me and I knew it reminded him of my other self, before Kagome purified me - the self that wandered the night followed only by a human child and a toad demon, the self that killed indescriminantly without care. "Sake?"  
  
"No, thank you, Sesshoumaru-sama," he bowed again, this time shallower, "I have my car."  
  
"I advise you to accept the sake, and the seat, " I said, my back still turned to him, pouring the tart clear rice wine into a matching set of shallow dishes, "as you will not be leaving here for a while."  
  
I heard his swallow and detected his scent's subtle shift into the sourness of fear.  
  
Good. I wanted him to be afraid of me.  
  
I turned, the small half smile still on my face, and handed him the dish. He sat and threw the liquor back, blue eyes darting all over the room. He was probably looking out for people I had to attack him - I, of course, had made no such preparations. If his answers were not satisfactory, I would rip out his heart myself.  
  
I leaned one hip against my desk and sipped at my own sake until it was gone. Kouga waited me out, licking his lips in nervousness. I then undid my charcoal blazer and folded it carefully and placed it on top of my blotter. My deep red tie followed soon after, and then I rolled up the sleeves of my black silk dress shirt.  
  
I was ready for business, and the wolf knew it.  
  
Sweat beads actually appeared on his forehead.  
  
I crossed my arms over my chest and crossed my ankles as well, looking down my nose at him. He swallowed again, heavily, but I did not offer him water. I did not want him to think he was an honoured guest, for he wasn't.  
  
"If I may be so bold, my Lord," he finally screwed up the courage to say, "for what purpose have I been summoned?"  
  
I inclined my head ever so slightly to the side, letting my ponytail drop onto my leg.  
  
"It is about someone we both know," I said softly, so quiet that I could see him concentrating to catch my words. Yes - he was giving me his full attention. "A hanyou."  
  
"Inu Yasha?" he asked.  
  
"No. A Living one. A female."  
  
His eyebrows drew downwards and I could see him concentrating, trying to think of who I may be referring to.  
  
"You have not seen her in a very long time, I expect," I added, "five hundred years, I'd say."  
  
His black eyebrows immediately reversed direction and went galloping into his hairline. "Sister..." he whispered, and the disbelief was almost tangible. "Aisilin?"  
  
"The young woman was found in the mountains, where your old den used to be, if I recall the report correctly," I paused and narrowed my eyes at him. His own were wide and there was a blush high on his cheeks. "Just nine weeks ago, in fact. She is in hospital now."  
  
Kouga jumped to his feet and bowed so low that I thought perhaps he may have hurt himself by banging his chin on his knees. "Please, my Lord, which hospital!"  
  
I let the question hang unanswered for a few long seconds, until he slowly straightened and dared to meet my gaze.  
  
"...my Lord?" it was less a question than a plea.  
  
"Why should I tell you, wolf?" I asked, settling myself fully onto the edge of my desk.  
  
His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Eventually he said, "...because. My Lord, I have claimed her as my woman. I tracked her for a while in her youth but lost her trail four months ago in the American state of Colorado."  
  
One corner of my lips twitched upwards and he flinched. Been watching over her, had he? That revelation raised him in my esteem, but only slightly. "Did you not claim Kagome, as well? And yet you gave her up. I wonder, if you take this girl and have your way with her, will you honour your claim and make her your mate, even if she is a hanyou? And if you are true to your word, how can I know that it is the girl's free will that brings her to your side?"  
  
Kouga gapped for a few more seconds, and I could see him forcing back tears of confusion and shouts of anger. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, composing himself. Then he opened them, and met mine directly, in a challenge. "Because, Sesshoumaru-sama, I love her. And... I think... I hope she loves me too."  
  
There was a pregnant pause. I smelled no deception from him.  
  
I turned away from him, to my desk, and retrieved a scrap of paper. This I handed to Kouga, and he scanned it hungrily. It held the address and room number of the private clinic where Aisilin was sequestered.  
  
"Thank you, my Lord!" he bowed again and snatched up his duster from the arm of the chair and bolted for the door. Before he reached it, however, he remembered himself and turned back to me and dropped to one knee. "I am forever in your debt, Sesshoumaru-sama, and as payment I pledge myself to your service, for whatever purpose you see fit."  
  
I nodded, acknowledging his oath. If he did intend to mate with Aisilin, it was moot - as my nephew-in-law, he would be pledged to my service anyway. I did not voice this fact, however.  
  
The wolf regained his feet once more, pulled his duster on, then paused. "My Lord, one more question, if it pleases?"  
  
I nodded, standing up and brushing off my pants. "Go ahead."  
  
"Why is my Lord so interested in my intentions towards the girl?"  
  
I smiled again, walking around my desk and taking a seat in my wingbacked leather chair. I shuffled through some papers, enjoying his wriggling impatience, then looked up and returned his earlier challenge by looking him straight in the eye.  
  
"Her happiness is very dear to me," I intoned. "When she returned she had been very grievously maltreated, and all signs pointed towards a rapist. The semen found inside her body, Kouga, belonged to you."  
  
The wolf went instantly pale. "My Lord Sesshoumaru! It wasn't me!" I shot him a look of disbelief. "No, I mean, it was ME who... um... I did .... rut with her... but it was her choice! Hell, she started it! ... er... forgive me... but my pack was sheltering her at the time, protecting her from the man who had abused her, from Naraku!"  
  
I favoured him with another look calculated to make him uneasy.  
  
"Please believe me, Sesshoumaru-sama, my intentions towards Aisilin are pure!"  
  
I nodded. "This is what I wanted to hear." I then effectively dismissed him by raising a file folder between us and made as if to begin reading. I heard him turn away and the soft padding of his feet on the thick carpeting. I waited until his hand was on the doorknob before saying, "Kouga."  
  
He turned to look at me, chewing on his bottom lip. "Yes, my Lord?"  
  
"If you hurt her, I will kill you."  
  
"Er... yes, My Lord. But, my Lord, if I may ask...you did not tell my why she is dear to you."  
  
"Why, Kouga," I said, a light mocking tone slipping into my voice as I set down my folder. "I thought you'd have figured it out by now. After all, she has my cheekbones."  
  
"Your... I beg pardon...?" he stammered.  
  
"Aisilin is my great-great-great-great-great-great-grand-niece."  
  
The wolf went even paler still, if it was possible, and bowed low again. "Yes, my Lord. Sayonara, my Lord."   
  
I heard the snick of the door shutting quietly behind him, but by then was already absorbed in the newest request for funding by the arts council to do more than register it in the back of my mind.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note:  
  
Welcome back, those of you who have found this fic. I didn't advertize it at the end of "Spider" because, frankly, I didn't think it'd exist. You may all thank and or blame Jaye for this, as she wrote a review that said : "I read it in one sitting and when i reached the end i cried out loud SEQUEL! There must be a sequel. Please. I'm begging!" I didn't even consider writing a sequel until I read those words. And then I thought, "No, there's no story left to tell."  
  
Ara, I was wrong. Of COURSE there's a story left to tell - Kouga's.  
  
I'm trying to do it in a new and unique way - telling his through the eyes and tales of everyone else. This instalment of the story, as you've all probably noticed, is not told through the eyes of Aislin as the previous one was, but instead boinces back and forth between her and the other major players. Anyway, I hope I can make this one as interseting as the first - and I'll try really hard to have it done before classes start on Tuesday. ^__^   
  
Enjoy everybody!  
  
Also, please pester your favourite Inu Yasha fanartists - I want to try to find someone willing to do "Spider" (and perhaps "Wolf") as a fancomic. Or, at least, gratify my ego with a little fanart?  
  
Thanks!  
  
--Vega  
  
Reviews:  
  
Sorrow: I'm glad that you appreciate the new story. I'm trying to keep it within the same style of stroytelling as the last one. If you'll notice, each new story I tell is told with a slightly different tone and mood, a different set of vocabulary and images. I try to find a FEEL that's unique for each tale. Compare the tone of "Across Time" to "Spider" and "Ningen". All three are first-person narratives, told from the perspective of a young woman, but all three are also very different.  
  
Aldea: ~_^  
  
Sashlea: JEALOUS! Whatever for? EVERYONE can write well, it just takes time to learn the rules to sculpting plot and sentences, is all! (pha! And I'm hardly the best there is. Lookit SSJ Trinity! I'm still going to classes for it at University... with professionals like Collin Taylor, and Daniel David Moses, even.) I still have a long way to go before my plays and novels are ready to be seen in the light of day - and practicing my writing and storytelling by creating fanfiction is very helpful. Everyone's feedback is even MORE helpful! As for your quesiton about Kouga - that is exactly what this fic will set out to explain, I hope. 


	5. Inu Yasha

Wolf  
  
Part Five: "Inu Yasha"  
  
by Vega  
  
  
  
"I'm giving her up."  
  
Inu Yasha stared at Kouga as if he had just spontaneously grown an extra head.  
  
"Inu Yasha, did you hear what I said? I don't want Kagome to be my woman any more, I--"  
  
"Whoa, you wimpy wolf, I heard ya!" the dog hanyou snapped, and resumed staring at his long time rival for Kagome's affection. The day was annoyingly cheerful, the weather wonderful in the Inu Yasha Forest. The hanyou it was named for was seated on the edge of the Bone-Eater's Well, as he had been waiting for Kagome to meet him there before her journey back to her own era. And that was where Kouga had found him moments earlier.   
  
"You're just... givin' her up? Just like that?" the hanyou continued, and Kouga nodded. Inu Yasha's golden eyes narrowed. "What's the catch?"  
  
"No catch," Kouga shrugged. "The final battle is over and Naraku is gone. I no longer have need of Kagome because the Shikon no Tama is complete."  
  
"What!?" Inu Yasha snarled, "Is that the only reason you've been chasing her around like some base animal in rutting? Cause she's a Shard Detector?"  
  
"You make it sound so unsophisticated," Kouga sneered, "besides, isn't that the only reason you're friends with Kagome?"  
  
Inu Yasha opened his mouth to shout back a witty retort, but he found it dying on his tongue. Something in the wimpy wolf's words struck where it hurt the most.  
  
"You love her, Inu Yasha," Kouga sighed and let his defensive posture drop. Inu Yasha silently mimicked, but remained rocked forward on the balls of his feet, just in case. Kouga noted that Inu Yasha did not argue with his statement. "I thought, maybe I did... perhaps at one point, my love was real, but..."  
  
"But?"  
  
Kouga shrugged. "I met someone else."  
  
"That wolf bitch from up north?"  
  
"Ayame?" Kouga chukled, "she's too young. Besides, she's got a mate now. No... this girl... she was a hanyou."  
  
Inu Yasha's yellow eyes narrowed. "What Hanyou?"  
  
"You never met her. I made sure of that," Inu Yasha's ears twitched forward, unsure if Kouga's words were meant to be an insult or not. He decided to let that one slide. "She was a canine hanyou: fox, wolf, dog... she was quite the mix."  
  
"Keh," the hanyou sniffed and folded his arms into the sleeves of his signature red haori. "Where is this mutt girl now?"  
  
Kouga shot Inu Yasha an annoyed glare, but kept back his short retort. For Kagome's sake, he wanted to at least try to be civil to his long time rival before the 'Naraku o ou Mono' parted was for good.  
  
"I don't know. I think she was kidnapped by Naraku. He's dead, so if she's still alive, she'll be free. So I'm going to look for her."  
  
"Well," Kagome said, and both demons whipped around to see her coming out of the forest, standing beside the Goshiboku, one hand absently caressing the bark. She was dressed in one of Sango's casual kimono, as the battle the week before had totalled her sailor fuku. She looked unbelievably pretty in the period dress of this era, and Kouga wondered idly if maybe he was making a mistake, giving up on the Miko. "Describe what she looks like, Kouga-kun, and maybe we can help you find her."  
  
"She's very easy to spot," Kouga said, overtop of Inu Yasha's "Keh - I don't want to help the wimpy wolf!"  
  
Kagome shot him a death glare and then smiled sweetly at Kouga and said, "please, continue."  
  
"She has very blue eyes, and red hair, like your fox kit's. The most distinctive thing is her arm, though."  
  
Inu Yasha's posture stiffened slightly. "What about her arm?"  
  
Kouga lifted his right are to help him illustrate and explained, "It was very badly hurt. The scarring would be extensive. Puncture marks here, where she was bitten by a large youkai. The rest, from here to here, is burns, bad ones."  
  
Kagome stared at him with wide eyes.  
  
Understanding struck the two of them like lightning.  
  
Kouga locked eyes with her and then slowly, his voice pitched low, said, "You've seen her."  
  
Kagome nodded like a marionette and Inu Yasha moved to stand beside her, obviously perturbed by her strange reaction. Kouga noticed out of the corner of his eye that the Hanyou grabbed the Miko's hand, the gesture half-hidden behind the wide sleeves of his fire-rat fur haori.  
  
"Yes, Kouga-kun, I have. Two weeks ago, in fact. Right before we found that large stash of Shards. She... she gave me this." Kagome reached into her pocket and pulled out a vial with a cork stopper, and a small sliver of Shikon Shard inside it.  
  
"That's not possible! You never showed me that before!" Inu Yasha almost yelled. "The Tama is compete!"  
  
Kagome smiled slightly and touched the hand-blown glass bead rosary through her shirt. From it hung the delicate magenta jewel that all this messy war business had been fought for, complete, and purified.  
  
"Yes - but this shard comes from.... well, it's hard to explain," she admitted, her feet scuffing the dirt. "It's a time travel thing. This one is from further in the past than we are now - I just need to make sure it gets to where it's going to go, and it'll all work out."  
  
"How do you know that!" Inu Yasha snarled, and let go of Kagome's hand, starting to get agitated. Kouga stepped back and crossed his arms, smirking.  
  
"Well, because it already has!" Kagome snipped back. Then he narrowed her eyes on Kouga. "AS I was saying, I've seen her. She gave me this. Kouga, she's from MY time."  
  
"Hm," was all Kouga said. After a long moment of thinking he finally declared, "Then I guess I better stay alive that long, huh?"  
  
And with that he jumped up into a tree and sped off, back to where he'd left Ginta and Hakkaku trying to spruce up the den. The three of them were going to live in it again, and if any of them wanted mates, the place would have to look nice.  
  
Calling over his shoulder he cried out, "Good luck training HER to be a suitable mate, mutt-face!"  
  
He laughed when he heard Kagome's screeching, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?!" 


	6. Ginta

Wolf  
  
Part Six: "Ginta"  
  
by Vega  
  
Kouga was gone only a few days this time around, which gave Hakkaku and I hope. Perhaps he really was getting over that Miko.  
  
I sighed as he entered the cave and flopped down onto his pallet. I wanted to crash out too - it had been a long week of cleaning out the piles of old bones, scrubbing away the ash and soot that had lined the walls, and chipping a channel in the riverbed above that had re-directed the stream.  
  
The pack had always meant to create a small indoor waterfall and collecting pool near the back of the cave, with a small stream running along one wall to the entrance where the water would re-join the river, but with the Gokurakuchou attacks, and then Naraku, there was never time for it.  
  
Now, as the only predators on the mountain range, we had all the time we wanted to spruce up, hunt, and even start to grow those wild cucumbers that Hakkaku had grown so fond of. He really liked the sour pickles that he had stolen from Kagome's pack one night, and had begged her for the recipe later.  
  
He swore up and down that he would make a new batch as soon as the cucumbers were ready.  
  
  
  
I wanted to flop down and go to sleep like Kouga had by sunset, but it was my turn to hunt.  
  
Excusing myself I walked out of the cave, dodging around the waterfall and jumping onto the grass knoll below. I took a deep breath and smiled. I was exhausted, true, but there was nothing more exhilarating than freedom.  
  
Free from worry, free from obligation, just plain FREE.  
  
With Naraku dead we didn't need to look over our shoulders every time we heard a twig snap, and with the Gokurakuchou gone, we had full run of the mountain range. And with only three of us left in our pack, it made Hakkaku and I equals, almost on par with Kouga, which made things easier.  
  
Of course we missed our pack mates. We missed them desperately, every day. The fallen had been men that I had known from pups, comrades I had wrestled with on the ground, nipping at their ears.  
  
But we had to look to the future now - we had to honour their memories and rebuild our clan.  
  
Kouga had given up on the Miko, so that left all three of us bachelors. Hakkaku spoke off and on about a Southern Tribe woman he had met on a scouting mission down there years ago, and was, in my opinion, just screwing up the courage to ask Kouga to go see if she was still mateless.  
  
I leapt up the side of the cliff, my legs burning with pleasurable exertion, and paused at the top, scenting the air. Yes, a mammal had passed this way not to long ago - something with four feet and hooves, the tracks said. I grinned and headed off in that direction.  
  
And what of me, I mused as I ran, the wind in my face.  
  
Where would I find a mate suitable to carry on our bloodline? I found my mind drifting back to our Sister, the one who had called me her great-great-great-grandfather. She had been very pretty, and very nice, and that's why I had liked her so much. She seemed to take everything in stride, accepting what was as it was. She seemed content, even, with our life rustic life, which I could tell by the reactions she had to some of the more extreme aspects, was very different from her own.  
  
I wanted her, and badly, but she had chosen to care for Kouga instead. I had tried to win her to me, but it was no use. She was smitten. Truthfully, I couldn't blame her - Kouga was the Alpha Male. He was strong and resourceful, he was energetic and dynamic, arrogant yet understanding, and a charming and charismatic leader.  
  
It was slightly heart-wrenching to see her choose him over my, but he was my Prince, so what could I do about it? She told me later that it would never have been possible for us to be together as I was her great-great-great-grandfather, and it made me wonder if she had not been related to me, would we have been mates?  
  
Or had there just been no hope at all?  
  
I shrugged off these thoughts as I scented my quarry, shutting off the analytical portion of my brain and giving myself over to the instinct.  
  
My last conscious thought was that even if I couldn't have our Sister, there was still someone out there destined for me... and she was living proof of it.  
  
All I'd have to do is wait.  
  
It was a comforting thought that kept me warm for many lonely nights.  
  
~~~  
  
When I first laid eyes on the girl, I raised an eyebrow at Kouga, and he laughed.  
  
Her name was Kaede, and she was barely a year old. She had the bright green eyes of her Kitsune Taiyoukai father Shippou, but the fluffy silver hair of her Inu Youkai ancestors.   
  
"Gah!" she cried upon seeing me over her mother's shoulder and waved her chubby hands in the air towards me, little fingers curling and uncurling. The noise made Kakera turn around and notice my Prince and I.  
  
"Konichiwa, Kouga-sama, Ginta-sama," she said, bowing, holding Kaede closely. It seemed slightly foolish to prescribe to all those silly courtly rituals in the middle of a rice paddy on the outside of town, but this is where we had happened to come upon the Miko.  
  
"Hello, Kakera-san," Kouga answered back. I was too busy starting at the squirming ball of flesh and wondering how on earth it was that I was supposed to marry this thing. Perhaps our Sister had been joking when she had whispered that I was destined to be with Kouga's Rival's great-great-granddaughter?  
  
"What brings you to the shrine today?" the Miko woman asked kindly, hefting her daughter up on her hip.  
  
"Let me carry her, Kakera-san," I immediately offered and held out my hands. "You look tired, and your herb basket is full." With a quick glance at the child, Kakera handed her over, and I could see by the expression on her face that she was relieved. She began walking again, leading us through the town and up the steep steps that lead up to the Shrine House, and across the temple courtyard to the Bone-Eaters Well and the prayer-hut that was currently under construction around it.  
  
"Ginta and I have come to pay our respects," Kouga said softly as we began to follow. "We are very sorry for the loss of your grandfather. Inu Yasha was a brave and strong man..." Kouga paused and flicked his tail, briefly, "even if he was an arrogant, fat-heated, dog-breath."  
  
Kakera laughed softly, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Let me take you to the Goshinboku, then."  
  
We followed her to the tree, now fenced off and covered with little folded paper cranes and notes of farewell, tokens of affection, and prayer scrolls and beads. Four tall, white, slim marker stones told the world in elegant kanji that here lay 'Sango, Miroku, Kagome, and Inu Yasha' A taller stone stood slightly apart from those, carved into a needle shape of black marble that proclaimed that those who lay here were the 'Naraku o ou Mono.'  
  
I wondered briefly as the child in my arms began to tug at my pointed ear if when I died I would be buried next to these brave people. I hoped so.  
  
"Kaede!" Kakera scolded her daughter when she finally noticed the abuse I was suffering. She took the baby back with an apologetic smile. "Really, that's not very nice at all."  
  
"She's just a baby," I offered, shrugging. "I'm not hurt."  
  
Kakera shook her head briefly - "as mischievously as your father, you know that, Kit?"  
  
As Kouga walked around the base of the tree, his eyes on the ground, making sure not to step on the freshly turned earth that marked Inu Yasha's final resting place, I pulled Kakera aside and asked, "Why'd you call her Kit? There's no history of this name in the family, is there?"  
  
"No, you're right, there isn't. It's a nickname. From 'kitsune'," she explained. "See the tail?"  
  
And indeed, there it was - my future wife's curly orange tail.  
  
"Forgive me," Kakera suddenly, "I just realized that this is the first time you've met her." I blushed and nodded. It'd been nearly five years since we'd last been anywhere near Inu Yasha forest. Hakkaku was busy with his own pups, and as his pack, they kept us on our toes too. It just got hard for us to find the time. When we got word of Inu Yasha's passing, we made a point of making it. When Kouga and I were finished, we'd go back to the Den, and Hakkau and his mate would come, and we would watch the pups for them. "Kaede here," Kakera continued, and I snapped out of my thoughts to pay attention, "is nearly a year old. Her birthday will be at the next full moon."  
  
"One year, eh?" I commented, unsure what to say. I wasn't used to remaining polite for such long periods of time. At, polite by Ningen standards. "Well, I'll make sure to drop by for her birthdays, I guess," I promised lamely.  
  
I was saved from commenting by Kouga's return and our departure.  
  
When we were far enough away from the Shrine he said, "So, you gonna propose tomorrow?"  
  
"Shut up," I snapped.  
  
He just laughed.  
  
Oh sure, easy for him - he already had a mate waiting for him.   
  
Secretly, though, I wondered ... when he finally caught up with our Sister... would she still want to be with him? Or had it just been comfort sex?  
  
In the depths of his eyes, I could see and knew that Kouga had the same underlying, gnawing fear.  
  
~~~  
  
There was nothing to be done for it.  
  
I shoved Kitsu into her mother's arms and told them to go stand beside the waterfall a the back of the den, as far away from the mouth of it as possible. There was going to be a fight, and the Ningen were going to use pistols.  
  
I wasn't sure if I was going to survive. I wasn't even sure they were - but I prayed to Kami, anyway.   
  
  
  
Kouga looked fit to leap out and rip out their throats on his own, but we three knew that there was no way that he could move fast enough to avoid getting at lease a sot-wound serious enough to slow him down.  
  
"Kouga," I said softly, and grasped a handful of his Daimyo's wide kimono sleeve The wolf prince stopped growling long enough to listen to me. "We ran out of time, Kouga. Hakkaku got his family out but I... If something happens to Kaede and I, Kouga, will you promise me... promise to be Kitsu's father?"  
  
Kouga nodded and clenched his teeth, his fangs poking out over his bottom lip.  
  
~~~  
  
I had been shot thought he chest.  
  
I could hear Kitsu's sobbing, muffled no doubt in the haori of her mother. I heard Hakkaku's bellow of outrage.   
  
But I felt Kouga's hands under my head.  
  
"Take my sword," I said to him, and he told me to hush and save my strength. I shook my head - no, that would be pointless. "Use it well."  
  
Kouga unlaced the sheathe from my belt and attached it to his own.  
  
"Kouga?" I reached up my hand and he took it.  
  
"Yes, Ginta, my friend?"  
  
I smiled slightly.   
  
"Take care of my great-great-great-greanddaughter," I coughed, "Or I'll haunt you. I swear it."  
  
"I will, my friend," he said, and I felt hot tears splashing onto my upturned face. "I will."  
  
The last thing I heard was his battle cry as he leapt at the firearms of the Japanese Military, my sword in one hand, his in the other.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note:  
  
I can't beleive how HARD it was to write as Ginta!  
  
This chapter was mostly to humanize Kouga more, but also as a treat for Vale, who's a HUGE Ginta fan and is currently considering doing some work for the first fic. ^_^  
  
Also, I really had troubles keeping names straight. GAH.  
  
  
  
Reviews:  
  
Jaye: Don't worry, there's still lots to come. Seventeen planned chapters at least, and three or four of them mostly written already. Resolution with Mom is forthcomming, but still a ways off. I'm also happy you like the great-grandmother - she's turned into a bigger character than I expected her to.  
  
Ariane: I hope I finish before tuesday too! Hmm... Az Volpe, a bunni? Er... maybe? Heh. I enjoy writing from everyone's different perspective - gives me a chance to play with dialogue choices and vocabulary, and tone. If you'll notice, the way that Sesshoumaru refers to Az is very different from the way her great-grandmother does, and youll see in later chapters that Naraku doesn't even bother with her name and calls her "my hanyou". 


	7. Father

Wolf  
  
Part Seven: "Father"  
  
by Vega  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Wednesday, September 25th, 19XX  
  
That strange kid is following me again.  
  
The one I noticed back on September 6th, in class. I checked with the registrar, and there's nobody I extra in our classes, as far as my friends and I know - so who is this kid? He's stopped sitting in the back of the lecture hall, watching me, but I've seen him a couple of times out in the hall right afterwards, or in the chair next to my favourite study spot in the library, or right at the table I like at Starbucks.  
  
I can't help but think that he's waiting for me to sit down and talk to him.  
  
My friends said I was crazy.  
  
Is he challenging me?  
  
I wonder if he's a xxx or something, 'cause his eyes are so blue.  
  
Maybe this is some sort of adolescent xxx pissing contest that no one warned me about? Memo to me: ask Uncle Sesshoumaru.  
  
Bonus: The cute American girl in lit. class smiled at me today!  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Friday September 27th, 19XX  
  
I saw Uncle Sess last night, but never got around to broaching the topic of this guy. It felt really stupid to ask him, "Hey! Do you know why I'm being stalked?" And If I had mentioned that it was by another xxx, the kid's be dead before I figured out why he was following me at all.  
  
I think I just might get up my courage and sit beside him next time I see him. If he has something to say, he'll say it. If he doesn't, I'll stare at him in that way that makes my eyes turn that creepy amber. Maybe I'll scare him into bugging off.  
  
If it's a coincidence, then that'd be even freakier, I think!  
  
And the American girl's name is Suza. She asked me to take her shopping on Saturday 'cause she can't figure out the subway system. Score! I gotta date with the gaijin!  
  
Note scribbled on a napkin, stuck between the pages of the Journal:  
  
Dear Volpe-kun:  
  
I had a blast! Let's do this again some time!   
  
Here's my phone number: ###-###-####.  
  
Huggles, tickles, and cookies!  
  
-Suza  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Sunday September 29th, 19XX  
  
Wow.  
  
Just, wow.  
  
I kissed Suza.  
  
All is right with the world.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Monday, September 30th, 19XX  
  
Okay, I lied.   
  
All is not right with the world.  
  
That kid is STILL following me, and I'm starting to get sick of it. He actually had the nerve to sit at a table where I could see him when Suza and I went out for lunch together today. I'm afraid I was a bit grumpy with her because of it. I'll buy her a spray of orchids or something to make up for it.  
  
I think I really like Suza.  
  
I don't know what my mother will say, though. She's such a traditionalist. Well, she's old enough to have lived when all the old traditions were still used. So I guess that's an excuse. She married an Italian after all - I guess I can date an American, if I want to.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Tuesday, November 1st, 19XX  
  
I saw him in the Starbucks again.  
  
I lost my nerve, though.  
  
Tomorrow for sure.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Thursday November 3rd, 19XX  
  
I waited until the coffee shop was mostly empty before I finally walked over to his table. I was on my third cup of the stuff so I was vibrating - I nearly spilt it on him. I hope he didn't notice.  
  
I stood directly across from him, clutching my newspaper and my coffee and just waited for him to look up at me. He was reading a magazine about wildlife - wolves. Finally his bright blue eyes slid up to mine and he flicked them down again, telling me to sit with his gaze.  
  
I sat.  
  
I really had no idea what to say. I fiddled with my coffee a bit before gulping the whole thing down. When I realized he was STUDYING me, I stared at him right back. He had the blackest hair I'd ever seen, and it was long and held in a pony tail at the nape of his neck, just like Uncle Sess wears his. And he had really really blue eyes - the same kinda shine that mine have. He took a sip of his own coffee when he was done looking at me, and I finally leaned across the table and said,  
  
"You're a xxx, aren't you?"  
  
He smirked a little and nodded briefly. I sat back, stunned. Then I said, "Why have you been following me?"  
  
He set down his coffee and spoke to me. His voice was surprisingly pure sounding, although strangely and archaic-ly accented (again, like Uncle Sess. His vocabulary is so outdated!). "I have."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"You're part-xxx," he said and I nodded. I was afraid he was going to call me a half-breed and try to kill me. Mom said that rarely happened any more, that xxx and ningen and those in between just left well enough alone in this modern era. "Your name is Okami."  
  
I nodded again.  
  
"I am Kouga, Prince of the Western Wolf Tribe," he said solemly, and I was suitably impressed, "and I wanted to make sure you were who I thought you were before I approached you."  
  
"And am I?"  
  
"Are you the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the xxx Inu Yasha?"  
  
I nodded again, confused. I wondered if I had just sealed my own doom by saying yes.  
  
"Then you are exactly who I think you are." This Prince Kouga studied me again and this time I saw that he was searching my face for something. "Ah, yes, you have your uncle's cheekbones... your line always does. But here," he reached out and tapped my temple gently with one sharp-nailed finger. It looked like a claw. "Is Kagome. The corner of your eyes crinkle up when you smile at that woman you like, just like hers did."  
  
Kagome, I knew, was the name of my ancestor Inu Yasha's wife, and I was stunned. This man KNEW Kagome!  
  
"You... were friends with Inu Yasha and Kagome?" I breathed, blown away.  
  
The corner of Kouga's lips twitched upwards.  
  
"I was Inu Yasha's rival for Kagome." He shrugged. "But the mutt-face won, what can I say? I'm not here about that," he added hastily. I think he saw the fear on my face - I thought maybe he had been looking for me to fight! You know, avenge his soiled honour and all that. "I'm here about you."  
  
"W-what about me?"  
  
He smiled again and leaned across the table so that he could whisper to me. "I'm here to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage."  
  
I blinked at him for a few seconds, then started to laugh. He smiled again, but didn't chuckle along with me.  
  
"My daughter!" I echoed jovially. "I don't have a kid!"  
  
"Not yet," he said softly.  
  
"Why do you want to ask if you can marry my daughter? Before I've even had one? How can you be sure I WILL have one? What if I have all boys? What if I don't get married at all?"  
  
Kouga shook his head minutely, as if amused. "You will have a daughter, Volpe-san, because I've already met her."  
  
I paused, letting the implications of that sink in.   
  
Bingo - then it hit me.  
  
"The Traveller is my kid!?"  
  
Kouga nodded.  
  
"Wait, so why are you asking me now?" I asked, "Why not wait until she's, I dunno, thirty?"  
  
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. "You won't be around then, Volpe-san. I don't want to give too much away, but she told me that you left when she was very young."  
  
"I would never walk away from my kid!" I snapped, suddenly angry. What sort of bastard did he think I was?!  
  
He sighed softly. "The way she said it, Volpe-san... I don't think she meant that you walked out on her."  
  
I paused again.  
  
I'm going to die, I realized. I'm going to die before my daughter is old enough to get married. The thought made me want to burst into tears right then and there. I didn't. I held them in. I looked up at Kouga slowly.  
  
"So you want my permission now? How do I know that she'll even love you?"  
  
His face sort of... twisted... I think I hit a sore spot. "I love her," was all he said. "She is my woman. I only thought it honourable to talk to you, first. But I will make her mine, with or without your blessing."  
  
I sighed as he stood up and snatched his leather duster off the back of his chair. He was right pissed. "Kouga-sama," I said, and he stopped and turned to look at me. "I can't say that I know enough about you to say yes or no, but if my daughter loves you, and only IF ... then yes, you have my permission."  
  
He stared at me, blank faced, for a very long time. Then he smiled.  
  
"Thank you, Volpe-san. This will mean a lot to Aisilin. She loves you and misses you desperately."  
  
"Thank you," I whispered, "for taking care of her..."  
  
He nodded and then walked away.  
  
I think I cried for a while, but I don't really remember.  
  
Somehow I found myself standing on Uncle Sess' front door step, talking to him, telling him that a wolf prince has asked to marry my kid when she's born and if she wants to, then she has my blessing.  
  
I didn't tell Uncle Sess that the Prince told me that I would be dead before that happened.   
  
It just seemed... too creepy.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Friday, November 4th, 19XX  
  
I didn't go to class today, I was too, I dunno... sad.  
  
Suza skipped class to feed me chicken soup.  
  
We kissed again.  
  
I think I'm falling in love with her.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Saturday, November 5th, 19XX  
  
  
  
I haven't seen Prince Kouga in two days.   
  
I guess he's said what he wanted to say.  
  
He better take care of my little girl.  
  
My... Aisilin he called her. What a pretty name. I like it. Aisilin Volpe.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Wednesday, November 9th, 19XX  
  
  
  
Suza agreed to go steady with me. I have a girlfriend! COOL!  
  
Journal Entry  
  
Friday, November 11th, 19XX  
  
She met Mom and Dad today (I was worried she'd wonder why Dad looked so much older than Mom, but she didn't say anything.)  
  
They said they like her. Whoo hoo!  
  
I meant to talk to Mom about this Kouga guy, but never got around to it. Maybe I'll keep it a secret - after all, if my daughter is The Traveller, I don't want them to treat her differently or anything. I want her to have a nice normal life. As normal as OUR lives are, anyway. I find myself wondering if she'll have glowing green eyes like mine.  
  
Suza really liked my parents.  
  
I'm so in love. I'm such a sap.  
  
Journal Entry  
  
February 20th, 19XX  
  
I asked Suza to marry me today!  
  
She said YES!!!  
  
We're gonna name our daughter Aisilin!  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Note:  
  
A bittersweet chapter, 'cause we know how Suza reacts later. *shakes head*  
  
I hope this format wasn't too confusing.  
  
And yes, there is PLOT hidden in these chapters... it's just a matter of finding it. You guys'll see in two more parts!  
  
I just may be finished by Tuesday, like I'd hoped. I've been writing chapters far beyond number 7 here, so the rest of the postings should be fairly quick after 10...  
  
Reviews:  
  
Sashlea: according to http://www.kabalarians.com/gkh/your.htm#links ,"Aisilin" has "given you tenacity of purpose and has made you extremely independent. Whatever you undertake, you approach from your own point of view, and others either have to conform to your ideas or go their own way and leave you to work things out for yourself. You are so narrowly focused in your pursuits that you frequently overlook the little personal considerations and attentions that create a bond of understanding and sense of companionship. Thus it is difficult for you to merge your efforts harmoniously with others."  
  
I did not know this when I picked this name. I wanted something that would be difficult for Naraku to pronounce properly, so I made something up that sounded vaugely western with lots of hard "r"s and "l"s. I thought it was a name I had made up on my own, but the fact that you foudn that it means "dreamer" is proof that I didn't. I think that's a very good name for her in retrospect - she's done a lot of dreaming, hasn't she? I also realized that this name is very close to the name of a Clown I created in acting class - Aisly Wayter - who was very fond of the moon and storytelling. Her favourite colour was blue. As for "Volpe", again, I had no idea it meant "cunning hunter", but coming from a long line of Inu Youkai, it makes sense.  
  
Actually, "Volpe" is the Italian word for "Fox" - and seeing as Az's grandfather was Italian and her other ancestors were foxes... ^_^  
  
Normally I do make a point of choosing a character's name by the meaning of it - thank you for reminding me why it's so important to make sure the name fits the personality. Lastly, Aisilin's nickname is "Az" for two reasons. First, it seemed to be the appropriate shortening for the name "Aisilin," and secondly, this character, by the time I got around to naming her, reminded me heartily of Kelly-chan's "Az" from the Webcomic "Arcana", physically, and personality-wise, of another "Arcana" character (who also has supernatural blood and has no idea what to do with it, really), Kisoka: http://arcana.keenspace.com/cast.htm  
  
Kataionna: Holy smokes! You reviewed every single chapter! COOL!  
  
Tears are always the best indication that I've done somehting right. Thank you for them. Yes, Kouga is smooth and mysterious - those boots, that duster! I bet he even tucks his pants into his boots. ^_^ I think that's sexy, at least, I don't know if anyone else does... PLEASE PLEASE draw it!! Then mail it to me!! PLEASE!! I wanna put it up on my site!!! http://www.angelfire.com/realm/arkaidy/inuyasha.html  
  
And everyone CAN write well if they just pay attention to the rules of the language and try hard, it's true. Unfortunatly, a lot of people who post online don't bother, which really annoys me. (almost as much as finding typos AFTER I've posted. Grr)  
  
Pallas Athena: By the number of exclamation points, I'd say you are excited... ^_^ I'm glad you like the change of style. Here's your update! 


	8. Mother

Wolf  
  
Part Eight: "Mother"  
  
by Vega  
  
I hate everything about this.  
  
This is that demon's plane, probably bought with the money stolen from innocent slaughtered humans.  
  
This is his plan, probably too! He MADE Aisilin call me, tell me to come to Tokyo. This is just some trick to get us back there, where that awful group of people can control us. But I wanted to see my daughter so desperately, how could I not come?  
  
I am afraid that he might crash the plane in purpose while I am on board, but all I can do is hold on and hope - hope that they'll let me see her again. I hate them all so much. I'm so scared for Aisilin - he phone call was so brief. The police that had shown up at my doorstep had fed me some cock and bull story about her being found in the wilds of Japan, and being taken to a hospital. She had been in hospital for a week before that leader demon of theirs found her.  
  
Bullshit. I bet he beat her so hard that she ended up there. If it's true, I'll kill him. I don't know how, exactly, but I'll find a way.  
  
I taught my daughter to be strong and independent. I taught her how to hold her own in a world where everyone just wants something from you. She's a good girl. She's a smart girl. All I have to do is hold on and pray.  
  
When I get there, Hell or Highwater won't be enough to keep me from bringing her back home. And I won't be doing it alone. I contacted a man from the city, Amp, they call him. He was recommended to me by a friend who is Buddhist - she says he a holy Houshin, a monk, and that it's his job to protect human kind from the evils of the world.  
  
He had to take a separate flight, but agreed to meet me at my hotel in Tokyo.  
  
Strangely, he asked me to describe my daughter to him before he agreed to the job, but I assume that it had something to do with the exorcisms he'll have to perform to rid our family of these demons once and for all. If my friend trusts him, I can trust him too.  
  
~~~  
  
A driver took me straight to the hotel without anything more than, "Welcome to Tokyo, Volpe-sama," "Please get in, Volpe-sama," and "No, I can't take you straight to the hospital, Volpe-sama."  
  
I was not pleased. When we arrived he held out the door for me, but I didn't thank him. He had eyes like THEM.  
  
A bell boy came and took my one hastily packed bag from me and lead me upstairs to the best suite. It was impressive, but only served to anger me further. What kind of crap were they trying to pull? Flattering me to make me submissive and co-operative, to make me feel that I owe them by piling the wealth on? Absurd! Insulting!  
  
When I entered the room I saw that the white-haired freak was there, waiting for me on the chair in the sitting room, and I whirled around to walk out. The Hell I was going to sit there let him try to brainwash me! But the bell-boy slammed the door shut in my face!  
  
I spun back around to face this tattooed abomination and snarled, "Let me out."  
  
He stood up and I must admit he was graceful. He walked over to the mini bar and poured out a shot of scotch for himself, then one for me. "Come," he said, holding one out, "sit and talk with me, my niece."  
  
"I am not one of you!" I remained where I was, "and neither is Az!"  
  
He frowned only slightly before putting both untouched glasses back down. "I'm afraid, Volpe-san, she very much is. She is the daughter of her father, a child of Princes, Warriors, Monks, and Lord Demons, of Mikos and Hanyou." He returned to his chair and shot me a mildly annoyed look. "Sit down. I will not attack you."  
  
I didn't trust him, but I had no where to run to. Hopefully Amp would be here soon, and he could get this demon with the long white hair out of here. I was so tired - I just wanted to sleep. But how could I do that when I knew Aisilin was probably scared and alone somewhere? Hesitantly I edged over to the couch opposite him and sat gingerly on the edge, ready to bolt if need be.  
  
"I smell much fear and hatred on you, Volpe-san," he sighed, "Please, don't be afraid. I just want to talk to you."  
  
"Where's Az?" I demanded immediately, and I thought I saw his fingers twitch. I must have been trying his patience. GOOD.  
  
"Aisilin-kun is resting in a private clinic right now. She has been very badly hurt, physically and emotionally."  
  
"Don't you use such a familiar honorific for my daughter!" I pounced on the informal way he referred to Aisilin, rather than on the implications of her injuries. Was he threatening me with causing her more harm?  
  
He frowned gently. "I address Aisilin-kun so because she requested it."  
  
I turned my head away, in a clear gesture of disbelief, but didn't dare verbally challenge him - it may cost me my life. He was very good at playing the human, but I knew, I knew that he was the leader of this disgusting tribe of people - I recognized him from my husband's funeral. And I had to live long enough to get my daughter and I out of this god-forsaken country.  
  
"You have changed much since I last saw you, Volpe-san," he ventured after a moment. "You have aged gracefully."  
  
I whipped my gaze back around to him, trying to smolder him with my eyes. "Don't rub in my mortality, you beautiful monster!"  
  
He shook his head, then stood and smoothed out his blazer. "I see there is no reasoning with you. Aisilin-kun said as much, but I still wanted to try. I bid you fare-well."  
  
"Get out," I snapped. "Tell me where my baby is, then get out!"  
  
He reached into his pants pocket and I tensed - was he going to draw out a weapon and kill me? Demons were an edgy bunch, I remembered. He would destroy me for shouting at him!?   
  
Instead of a blade, he plucked a cream coloured calling card out of his pocket and handed it to me. I took in gingerly, wary of any spells or ambushes. When none seemed to come I read the writing.  
  
It was the name and address of the clinic Az was in, and a room number. I wanted to grab my coat and race over there right now, but I knew I had to wait for Amp. I wasn't even sure that he would be able to find me there if I left him a note, for he spoke no Japanese, to my knowledge. And I couldn't fight off the monsters alone. A mother's desperate need to protect can only take you so far.  
  
The demon bowed to me briefly, then let himself out. Just before pulling the door closed behind him, he paused and said, speaking to me over his tweed-clad shoulder: "Volpe-san,"  
  
I felt my teeth clenching and closed my fist over the card. "What?"  
  
"We did no harm to your child. Did Okami-kun never tell you about The Bloodline and The Traveller?"  
  
The names rang alarm bells in my subconscious, and I strove to retain an outwardly calm facade. "He mentioned them - childish stories. I don't believe in them."  
  
I heard him scoff at my comment. "Perhaps you should ask your daughter about how childish and unbelievable she found the ordeal."  
  
I whipped around to glare at him, "Don't you DARE insinuate that my BABY was EVER involved with any of your demonic mumbo-jumbo bullshit!"  
  
I could hear his slight growl of mounting ire and wondered briefly if I had over done it, if I was dead. Instead of turning and killing me, as I expected, he just said:  
  
"Aisilin did not survive a journey through time, being held prisoner by the most evil and powerful Youkai in the history of Japan, her subsequent escape and return to this century just to be belittled and abused by the likes of you, woman." I started to protest but he cut me off with the upraising of one long-nailed hand - my god, he even had those horrid tattoos on his wrist! "Silence! This Sesshoumaru does not tolerate stupidity."  
  
"How DARE YOU--"  
  
"I DARE," he snarled and he was up in my face faster than I could see him move. All I got was the impression of a white blur and ferociously glowing golden eyes before he was too close to me to make out any details. I stumbled backwards, trying to remain a safe distance away, but he followed me step for step, backing me into the armrest of the couch. "Because I SWORE to her great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, my sister-in-law, the Honourable Miko Kagome that I would protect The Traveller with my life and ensure her happiness no matter what! I also swore to Aisilin-kun's father that I would ensure that she is mated to the Wolf Prince - who, consequently, has already come forward to lay claim on her. You cannot stop that either. I will do everything in my power to make sure that this poor child never has to suffer again, for she has already given up too much to protect our world. Do not believe, Volpe-san, that I will not hesitate to remove you PERMANENTLY if you so much as make her CRY. I only waver now because it would make Aisilin-kin miserable to loose you, as well, after she has already lost so much. You are only the bigoted bitch that weaned her - you are nothing in our family. You became nothing when you turned your back on us!"  
  
Before I could even take in the breath to reply he had vanished, and I heard the door slam shut.  
  
It took me a full ten seconds to register what had happened. Then I collapsed to the flood, clutching the cream-coloured business card, and praying that Amp got here soon. I had to rescue my baby.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Note:  
  
A shorter, chapter, I realize. Sorry.  
  
Looks like the fic won't be done by Tuesday as I'd hoped - let's aim for Saturday!  
  
I realized that "Aisilin's" name has changed like, four times since I started writing it, so I've been trying to make it uniformly AISILIN everywhere. If you catch one, let me know. I also re-up loaded chapter four because there was an ungodly amount of typos in it. I left an entire WORD out of one of the sentences. _  
  
Reviews:  
  
Jaye: Good to see you're paying atttention. I've never done review replies before this, nor did I ever read them on stories I was following myself, so I find it fun to drop little hints about what's going to happen in them, and see who catches on. ^_^  
  
Kataionna: *looks suitibly pathetic* can I see the pic you drew now...? *sniffle*  
  
Pallas Athena: Yes, I think that'd be big on the creep-out factor.  
  
sashlea: sneaky little bastard, isn't he? ^__^ 


	9. Phantasm

Wolf  
  
Part Nine: "Phantasm"  
  
by Vega  
  
I cried myself to sleep in Kouga's arms, still clinging to the telephone.  
  
When next I awoke it was dark, nearing dawn by the shade of purple outside my window. I had gotten frighteningly good and predicting what the time was by the way the sky shone in these past few months.  
  
I sat up slowly, still stiff in some places. I had been allowed to wander the hospital for brief periods of time in the last few days, just to keep myself from going stir crazy and for exercise, and I didn't want to be in my bed anymore just now. I looked around and saw nothing but darkness surrounding me, and whimpered slightly. It reminded me too much of my time at Naraku's castle.  
  
Where was Great-grandmother? Where was Unlce Sess? Where was Kouga? Why was I alone?  
  
"Hey, now, I'm here," I heard a comforting voice whisper from the dark shadows that enveloped the comfortable chair in the corner. Kouga's blue glowing eyes suddenly jumped into existence as he opened them, and came forward to sit on the edge of my bed. He was entirely too good at blending in with the darkness for my liking.  
  
He was whispering, which wasn't really necessary, as I had a private room, but it was soothing none the less.  
  
"I'm sorry," I whispered back. "Were you asleep?"  
  
"Only a little," he smiled and brushed his fingers through my hair.  
  
"I want to go watch the sunrise," I said abruptly and his lips twitched even further upwards. Without another word he stood, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and went to the far side of the room to retrieve our coats.  
  
I watched him go, his tail swaying back and forth, and asked myself for the millionth time what it was exactly that I thought I was doing. Here was Kouga, the Prince of the Wolves, rushing to my side the moment he knew where I was, swearing his undying love for me, swearing that he'll be the best mate a hanyou could ever ask for, swearing that he's been faithfully waiting for me for five hundred years.  
  
Then in the same breath tells me that every friend I once had in the Feudal Ages, except him, was dead.  
  
I felt like someone had taken a tire-iron to my gut. I wanted to hug him and hold him, and let him protect me forever from the nightmares and the past, but at the same time, push him away and wail in grief. Ginta and Hakkaku were gone...  
  
And then he asked me if I missed him, and what am I supposed to think? What am I supposed to say?  
  
"I don't know"?   
  
I mean, I'm not even sure I LOVE him, and he wants to MARRY me?   
  
We slept together once, and that was, in my mind, mostly to keep Ginta from trying the same, and was pity /comfort sex. He was there, we both wanted it, so we did it! I was a responsible adult and chose. I was lucky I didn't get pregnant, but otherwise enjoyed the experience.  
  
Kouga was, admittedly, very attractive and very attentive. He was charming in a 'get your eyes off my woman or I'll rip them out' kinda way, and I'd always sort of like the sweet-heart-asshole type. But did I LOVE him?  
  
I don't know. I have been watching him these past few days, listening to all he's said, and have made myself stop and think rationally. I wanted so desperately to fall head over heels into his heart, but I wondered if that was just a side effect of the piercing loneliness and fear I'd been awash in for the past few months.   
  
If I agree to mate with him, that's it. It's all over. I'm his forever. So my feelings better not be a fluke, or else.  
  
Can I deal with that?  
  
Do I even like him enough to want to spend forever with him?   
  
And on the flip side of the coin, he's the most gentle, kind, polite, sweet and paradoxily, sexy, sensual, and 'naughty' man I've ever been with in my entire life. I realized the moment I saw him arguing with great-grandmother in the doorway of my room, hands flailing in his frustration, eyes flashing, that black leather duster flapping with his movements, that it had been him ; the man who had saved me on the street that day when I had been a kid had been Kouga.  
  
Kouga. He had known where and when I was going to be - he must have been following the line of my ancestors very carefully, or maybe the Miko had told him. Who knows? But he had followed me, protected me, watched over me. He had been my own personal guardian demon for my entire life, and now he was asking me to let him step out of the shadows and hold me for real.  
  
I was flattered, honoured, and squicked all at the same time.  
  
Truth be told, it was a little creepy, thinking that all those lucky times I'd managed to do something to keep myself away from danger, Kouga might've really been the one responsible for it. And had he watched me dating all those other boys that resembled him? Had he been jealous fo them?   
  
I hadn't heard from some of my exes in a while - I wondered if Kouga had ever done anything to the ones that had hurt me terribly. And now that I thought about it, more than once, one of them that I thought I could settle down with and maybe be content with had sudden changes of hearts and "I realized I don't love you anymore"s.   
  
I made a mental note to myself: ask Kouga how many of my boyfriends he had threatened.  
  
Again, the thought of him cornering one of them and demanding that they leave me alone is both feet-sweepingly romantic and perversely possessive. Only an arrogant fathead like the Prince of the Wolves would be self assured enough to tell ningen boys to pack up and move on before he had even properly met or wooed me.  
  
And yet here he was - the one man all those other boys couldn't measure up to.  
  
I had spent my whole life fantasizing about Kouga, and here he was, in the flesh, and all mine. But after all was said and done, I was scared. What if he had built me up to be something that I was not? Five hundred years is a long time. What if I had done the same? The disappointment could be heart-wrenching for the both of us.  
  
For him, it may be fatal - I know that Uncle Sess would spit Kouga if he ever dared to hurt me... that is if there was anything left after Great-grandmother got to him. And she was in line behind ME.  
  
So I was taking it slowly, one step at a time.  
  
Right now, I was very fond of him, but I still didn't think it was love. Maybe with a few more days, it would get there.   
  
... if the arrival of my mother didn't shoot the whole thing to Hell before I could even decide if I wanted to love Kouga or not.  
  
Thinking of my mother made me anxious again and Kouga returned to the bedside and draped our coats over the edge of the foot-board. His pert little nose twitched. "What's the matter?" he asked as he held out an arm so I could cling to him and scoot myself out of bed. I was still awfully weak, although I never had need of a wheelchair because I had what Great-Grandmother dubbed, my own wheel-Kouga.   
  
He carried me everywhere I wanted to go, and although I knew I was not a burden because I was very thin and sort of unhealthy due to my time in the past, and he was very strong because he was a youkai, I still found it endearing.   
  
When he moved to scoop me up this time I shook my head, indicating that I wanted to walk on my own, and he said "Thinking about your mother?"  
  
I smiled slightly, grasping the rail with one hand as he helped me shrug my heavily-bandaged right arm into my jacket. "How did you know?" He tapped the side of his nose and I grinned all the way. "Bloodhound."  
  
He grinned himself, flashing me fang (and it was the grin that made me want to just shout out "Yes, marry me!" right then and there), helped me into my coat all the way, then left me by the bed briefly to go prop open the door. He grabbed his own coat on the way and began to slide it on.  
  
The moment he left my side, I felt suddenly and unbelievably cold. At first I thought it was just a draft from not being tucked under the covers or wrapped in Kouga's arms, but no... this was something else. It felt like an arctic wind had picked up and was whipping around me, yet nothing else in the room was blowing.  
  
I felt my heart raise into my throat, and I tried to swallow it back down, only to find my throat too dry to do me any good.  
  
I raised my right hand feebly, hoping he'd see the gesture out of the corner of his eyes and turn around.  
  
Oh, god, it was getting hard to breathe! I felt my body shivering, my teeth chattering - it was so cold!  
  
I swallowed again, trying to shout out to him, to scream, anything! No sound emerged. I tried again - again nothing!  
  
I had all but given up hope, icy shards flowing through my veins, tears pooling in my eyes, freezing on my eyelashes and in tiny tear-drop icicles on my cheeks, my fingers tips and lips numbing, when I managed a weak and breathy:  
  
"Kouga...?"  
  
He turned back to me, all smiles, one arm half in his leather duster. "Yeah?" His posture immediately changed when he looked at me, his face going white. He dropped the duster on to the floor and rushed at me.  
  
I was standing beside the bed, my good arm bracing me, stiff-jointed, my eyes wide and staring at nothing. I was going numb all over. I tried to shout, but my voice sounded like a mouse's whisper. "Kouga, something's wrong..."  
  
I collapsed suddenly, all tension vanishing from my body. It was only Kouga's quick reaction that kept me from bashing my head on the night stand as I fell. He cradled me in his embrace, on hand on my cheek, the other arm wrapped under my arms awkwardly, our legs tangled. He fell to his knees to ease the slipping.  
  
"AZ!" he cried, "What is it!?"  
  
My eyelids were feeling heavy and there was a suddenly burning flare of pain in my right wrist, as if I'd just been bitten. "I... I..."  
  
"What?" Kouga asked desperately, his fingers spasming, trying to hold on to me. Trying to keep me awake.  
  
"... I smell... sandalwood..." 


	10. Visitor

Wolf  
  
Part Ten: "Visitor"  
  
by Vega  
  
I scooped Az up off the floor and placed her carefully on the bed. "Az, wake up!" I tapped her cheek gently, shaking her by her good arm. "Az!" I had to choke back a sob as I saw her lying there, her pale skin putting the white pillow to shame, the circles under her eyes bruises as dark as the ones yellowing on her face and bare shoulders. "Az! Snap out of it!"  
  
My shouting attracted a nurse, who popped her head in the door and said, "Is there a problem, sir?"  
  
  
  
"She just collapsed!" I said, taking a step away from her, my hands flying up into my hair in a gesture of desperate frustration. "She was standing and she just fell!"  
  
The nurse's expression of curiosity immediately changed to one of determination and she barged into the room, pushed passed me and pressed the emergency call buzzer on the telephone by the bed. I crowded in again, wanting to touch Az, wanting to help, but the nurse pushed me away.   
  
"Go sit down, sir" she said, "you'll only be in the way." I nodded and retreated to the chair I had been dozing in previously, curling my legs up, tucking my knees under my chin. What was wrong?  
  
Sandalwood. She said she could smell sandalwood. Was she going into some sort of seizure, then, like the Canadian woman in the commercials, who could smell burnt toast? I wracked my brain, trying to remember every conversation I'd ever had with Aisilin, trying to remember why 'sandalwood' was so important.  
  
But five hundred years is a long time. My memory was slightly hazy.  
  
Other doctors and nurses and people in white coats came bustling into the room, and I just curled up on the chair, confused. I hated modern medicine. It was all pills and needles and beeping machines. Sterilized white and stern commands. It was loud and abrasive.  
  
No one looked to nature anymore for the answers - no one trusted in the insects and the animals for the cure, to plants for the pain relief.   
  
The flashing and wailing of ambulances still made me stop and yelp when I was passed by them. And hospitals were so thick with the stench of decay and death, rank with misery and anxiety, it's a wonder that more of the degraded youkai didn't haunt them.  
  
Ah, but Kagome and Inu Yasha had done a very good job ridding the world of those sorts of youkai. They had worked tirelessly for years, purifying, destroying, saving... eventually Kagome's Miko powers got so strong that even those like Naraku could–  
  
–NARAKU!  
  
I sprang to my feet, scenting the air. Naraku had used the sandalwood in an air-borne potion to control Aisilin. That's what she had told me all those years ago, that's why it seemed so familiar. So somewhere, around here, either someone who knew the ingredients to that concoction was using it to hurt my mate or... or it was Naraku himself.  
  
  
  
I shoved down a wave of trepidation at the thought - no, we had DESTROYED him. I had watched his body disintegrate myself!  
  
Yet, there it was - the subtle spicy perfume of sandalwood, peppered with... with something else I couldn't identify. Power. Energy. Something that smelled old and dusty. Darting out of the room, away from the doctors - and hoping that they could do something to wake Aisilin up - I followed the scent trail until I could actually see the smoke.  
  
It was coming from downstairs, in the lobby.  
  
I ran up to the edge of the balcony that overlooked the posh entranceway of the private clinic and grabbed the railing so hard I scratched the mahogany trimming with my claws. I looked down to see two people standing just below me - one was a woman, with yellow hair and her purse clutched tightly to her side. The other was a rough looking sort of man who seemed to have seen better days.  
  
It was from him that the smell of power emanated.  
  
With an audible snarl I leapt over the side of the balcony and landed directly in front of them. The woman shrieked, and the man shoved her behind him.  
  
"Get back, demon!" he smirked, holding, clenched in one hand, an ofuda and a lit stick of sandalwood incense practically under my nose. I took a step back because at that proximity. With my sensitive sniffer, the smell threatened to choke me. "We're here for the girl."  
  
He smiled, his teeth yellow, and I stared. Then I began to yell.  
  
"You stupid fucker, put that thing out!" I grabbed the smoldering stick from his hand and pitched it into the fountain that lay beside the ornate entry desk. The clerk on duty raised her eyebrows but said nothing. I suppose she was used to the eccentric behaviour of youkai - she was paid enough to be. I turned back to the couple before me, my lips pulled back over my teeth. "What kind of stupid Houshin trick are you trying to pull here, Amphitrion!?"  
  
~~~  
  
I met Amphitrion in his native Greece when he was but a pup.  
  
He was a street kid, down on his luck, no money, no where to stay, no one to look after him. He was robbing my corpse. Well, I wasn't really DEAD. I had been walking along the rooftops, not paying attention to my footing, and had slipped on a loose tile and gone crashing down into the alley below. It was rather embarrassing, actually. I had smashed himself a good one in the fall and immediately slipped into unconsciousness.  
  
While the fall would have killed a human, as a full-blooded youkai I was just winded for a moment. However, to the child Amphitrion I looked dead, and he pounced at the opportunity to pluck away my wallet, my gold earring, and my designer watch.  
  
Just as he was trying to wiggle a ring from my finger I sat up and locked a hand around his tiny throat.  
  
"What the Hell do you think you're doing?" I snarled in the Greek tongue and the kid yelped.  
  
"You were dead!" he answered back, "I watched you fall!"  
  
I let him go with a small shove and pulled myself up, dusting off the garbage and filth from the alley floor. "Hardly - takes a lot more than a knock on the head to kill me. Now, wallet, please."  
  
The boy fearfully handed over the wallet. He clutched at the other things, and while I had not expressly requested them, I was annoyed that he didn't hand them over immediately as well. I took a good long look at him, meaning to intimidate, but instead found myself pitying him. He was filthy, hungry looking, and dressed in clothes two sizes too small and tattered beyond repair.  
  
And something else twinged inside me. Something I couldn't identify.  
  
I groaned at my inward swell of pity. Damn Kagome and all her progeny. Damn their 'let help all those who need it!' ways! It had started to rub off. I was becoming a damned SOCIAL worker.  
  
Rolling my eyes, I pulled half of the money from my paper-clip and handed it back to the boy. It was paltry to me, the sum, but his eyes widened and I realized that this was probably the most money he'd ever held in his life. He tried to hand the watch and earring back to me to, but I crouched and closed his little hand over them.  
  
"If you need them bad enough to steal them, they're yours."  
  
The kid didn't look like he knew what to think, let alone do or say. He stared at me with big brown eyes and a second a queer sensation washed over me. I felt like I had stared into these eyes before.  
  
Disturbed, and wondering where the extreme deja vu came from, I broke the silence by standing up and saying, "When was the last time you got a hot meal, pup?"  
  
He shook his head.  
  
"If you don't know, then it's too long. C'mon, I'll fill you up."  
  
The child followed me without question and I wondered at that behaviour. Was he that desperate that he was willing to just follow after me, trusting that I wouldn't kill or rape him? It could have been, of course, that he knew but didn't care - he didn't look like he had a lot to live for. I used the time we walked beside each other to probe his scent - it was mildly familiar as well.  
  
This was more than middling frustrating.  
  
"I only know of one place," I admitted as we walked, and I shoved my hands into my jean pockets. "It's a bit scary, but the food's unbeatable. And the price isn't bad either."  
  
The child followed me with wide eyes, and I deliberately took him through a few twists and turns to make sure he wouldn't be able to find the place again. He was silent the whole way except for one comment:  
  
"Hey, mister... why do you have a fuzzy belt?"  
  
I had to suppress a burst of laugher. I had threaded my tail through my belt loops to keep it out of the way and hidden. It was okay in America now, where people were enjoying the horrors of shag and faux fur, but here in Greece it did indeed look just like a fuzzy belt.  
  
"I think it suits me, don't you?" I replied and the kid just shrugged. He knew better than to insult the source of a free meal.  
  
When we got to the tavern, a dive with a black door called the "Tepac", I paused to look at him. I had come up with a theory or two as to why he seemed so familiar, and I wanted to test them. The kid didn't look scared. Points for him.  
  
I knocked, suffered the once-over from the horse-youkai that answered the door, then slid inside, the human boy in tow. The place was filled with youkai of all breeds and nationalities, and not all of them in their human guises. I myself preferred my human facade just because it was easier to slip in and out of crowds, and to charm people into doing anything I wanted with these blue eyes and this smile.  
  
When in my wolf form, my eyes were yellow and my smile a death's grin of lolling tongue and razor-like teeth.  
  
The child pressed close to my leg, and I laughed. For the reincarnation of Miroku, he was quite the sissy.  
  
Yes, I had decided on the walk over, when I'd had a chance to think about the big brown eyes that had startled me so, this boy was definitely Miroku. And as a fellow 'Naraku o ou Mono', I owed him. I couldn't let him starve on the streets.  
  
We sat at a table for two in the far corner, and the child scrambled onto the well-worn and scoured stool, his eyes darting everywhere.  
  
"Don't stare at them," I said, and he immediately brought his eyes to meet mine. "It's rude."  
  
"They... they're not human."  
  
"No, they're not," I agreed. "You know that, of course, don't you. Deep inside, you know which ones are what, which are full blooded and which are only part. Which are good and which evil."  
  
The child gapped like a landed fish for a moment, before itching the palm of his right hand irritably.  
  
  
  
"Oh, stop that, I hate it when you fidget like that Miroku," I said unthinkingly.  
  
The kid stopped and stared at me.   
  
"Sorry," I said hastily. "I didn't get your name, kid."  
  
"Amphitrion," he scowled. "Mom thought I was gonna be some great historical hero."  
  
"You already are, kid," I murmured, and then was distracted by the flighty little bird-youkai girl who showed up to take our orders. I requested a large rack of ribs and some chicken wings on the side, which let the boy stunned. "I'm a predator," I flashed a smile at him that was all fang, and surprisingly he smiled. "Order anything you want," I insisted and he fidgeted for a moment, scratching his palm again, the tentatively requested a hamburger and french fries, explaining that he'd never had them before. The waitress asked if we would be paying in the usual way, I agreed, and she was off.  
  
I wondered just how much of the perverted houshin still existed in this child when I noticed his eyes flick to her ass as she sashayed away. He resumed perusing the patrons of the taverna, and I let him. Perhaps some of it was ringing bells.   
  
The food arrived, and the kid was silent for the duration of the meal, busy devouring the treat, and I watched him. Yes, there was the little head flick to get his long black hair out of his face. The same way of blinking twice in a row. And deep below his surface I could sense the untrained houshin's power.   
  
If he didn't start learning how to harness it now, it would be lost to him forever.  
  
Perhaps some of the others in the place felt it too, for no people tended to stay inside of a seven foot radius around us. The tables near to us were all empty, even though the place was bustling.   
  
"Hey kid," I said once he had finished and the waitress came to take our empty plates away. He snapped his eyes off her ass and back to me. "You ever have a dream that you were someone else?"  
  
The boy looked momentarily startled, his lips pressing together in a thin white line, before he let out a breath and licked them. "Everyone wants to be someone else."  
  
"I didn't mean 'dream about becoming someone else', and you know it." I levelled my blue gaze at him and he squirmed uncomfortably, itching his palm again. My eyes flicked to his whole hand and I said, "You dream that you were someone else, before this. You dream that there was once a hole in that hand, don't you? That's why you scratch it."  
  
He froze and stared at me.  
  
"How do you know...?"  
  
"The man's name was Miroku," I said slowly, and he nodded, confirming this. "I knew him. He used to be a friend of mine."  
  
  
  
I would have said more, but the waitress arrived with two small vials and a wicked looking scalpel. Amphitrion stared at it in horror.  
  
"Righto, boys, ante up," she chirped and I rolled back my sleeve.  
  
Taking the knife I placed the vial underneath my hands and made a deft cut in the tip of my finger. Then I handed the knife back to her and squeezed the digit until the vial was full. Satisfied, the waitress corked it, then turned to Amphitrion and held out the knife, which she had cleansed of my blood by wiping it on her apron. I could see his eyes flick down to the many rusty streaks on the frilly bit of cloth.  
  
"Well, come on," she said. "You can't leave without paying."  
  
"C-can't I just give you money?" the boy squeaked out, and I sighed.  
  
Taking one of his wrists in mine and plucking the scalpel from the waitress' hand, I sliced his fingertip quickly and painlessly, and held him in place until the vial was full. "Youkai eateries accept youkai payment. The owner is a very well respected kitsune youkai and he requires our magic to work his. It's a fair trade in my mind. A meal for a few drops of blood."  
  
The kid looked like he was gonna be sick, so I accepted the band-aide from the waitress, slapped it on him, and dragged him out of there. Luckily, he didn't spoil his marvellous lunch, but he was very green in the gills for a long while. He refrained from speaking, I think, because he feared he would vomit if he opened his mouth, and I took us to a bench in a park and waited him out.  
  
When he was looking pink again, he asked, "What did all those words mean?"  
  
"Which ones?"  
  
"The strange ones. Yo–yoki or something."  
  
"Ah, Youkai." I leaned back on the bench and threw my arm over the back of it, tapping out a rhythm with my fingers. My own cut was long healed, but Ampitrion kept staring at his own. "It's the word for what I am in my language."  
  
"And what's that?"  
  
"What I am or my language?"  
  
"Both... who... what are you?"   
  
I sat forward and met his eye. "I'm Japanese. My name is Kouga, Prince of the Ookami Youkai of the Westernlands. That means I am a Wolf Demon."  
  
  
  
His eyes narrowed and I knew he was desperately trying to accept what I had told him. "Wolf Demon."  
  
"Mmm-hmm."  
  
He paused, processing this. The information didn't seem to scare him, nor did he think I was lying to him. Good progress. "Is that what they all were in there? Demons?"  
  
"Yup."  
  
"My... my memories... my dreams..." he swung his feet slowly, as they didn't touch the ground. "In them, I am a man who fights monsters. Demons... these youkai things. Is that right?"  
  
I nodded again. "Miroku was a great Houshin - a Holy Monk. He spent his life purifying the world of the taint of the evil youkai."  
  
"But you're a youkai," the kid insisted, "and you were is friend!"  
  
"Yeah. But I'm not an evil youkai."  
  
"Oh." He accepted my words at face value and that was that.   
  
  
  
We were silent for a moment, then I said, "Kid, where's your family?"  
  
He looked down at his tattered shoe laces, and mumbled, "Don't got one."  
  
"Is there anyone who would miss you?" His head shot up and his eyes grew wide, his face going suddenly pale. "Oh, relax, I'm not going to eat you. I can sense a great deal of a Houshin's power within you. I want to take you back to my homeland where you can learn how to use it right."  
  
"You would... do that for me?" he whispered.  
  
"Do you have any better plans for tomorrow?"  
  
He smiled briefly. "Well, I was planning on stowing away on a boat for America, but that can wait, I think."  
  
"So do I."  
  
~~~  
  
I looked at the man standing before me, smelling like the same street urchin, but undercut with a sort of raw power that I was not familiar with. The watch I had let him keep still sat on his wrist.  
  
"Amp, what's going on!" I heard the woman behind him screech and I took a good long look at her and groaned.   
  
"You're Az's mother, aren't you?" she nodded fearfully, clinging to Amphitrion's shirt. "Well you can't see her right now, she's sleeping," I lied, not knowing what else to say. "As for you," I turned to Amphitrion, "It's obvious she's hired you to help her out, but as we can both see, I've got it covered. Thanks anyway, kid. Go home to your wife and pups, okay?"  
  
"My wife is dead," he sneered, and I took a step back. There was a meanness in his voice that I hadn't heard ever before. I mean, I hadn't seen him in nearly ten years, but... "And so are my children. A demon like you killed them."  
  
"Not like me!" I protested.  
  
"You're all the same," he snapped, "all of you! All slaughtering monsters!"  
  
"Amphitrion!" I said, aghast. What could have happened that was so awful as to make him loose faith in the principal that not all non-ningen creatures were human? It was something that he had clung so desperately to in the past.  
  
He walked past me without an answer, and the ningen woman followed him. I just stood in the lobby, stunned and unsure what to do. I heard the woman demand the doctors outside of Az's door move aside so she could see her baby, and they did so only after I got my butt in gear and walked up behind her, giving them an affirmative nod.  
  
She noticed our exchange and glowered at me, hating that I had the power to gain access to her child freely and she did not.. I moved forward to open the door for her, disguising in a move of gallantry my desire to put myself between this mad mortal and my mate. I winced to at the woman's gasp when she finally caught sight of her daughter.  
  
Az was all bound and bandaged up, tubes attached to her arms by needles and tape, sticky things leading to cords and beeping machines, and a breathing mask over her nose and mouth. She was still out cold, and it terrified me, although I strove to remain calm.  
  
What if she never woke up?  
  
I could hear Amphitrion's heavy breathing behind me as he peered over my shoulder, but he didn't smell the least bit surprised. If anything, I thought I detected a bit of disappointment. Had he known what his stupid sandalwood would do all along? If that was true, I had to keep an eye on him - he knew one of Naraku's spells.  
  
I was distracted by my perusal of th man who was once the boy I had considered a fairweather friend by the ningen woman's collapsing into a chair beside the bed and burying her face in her hands, bawling.  
  
"No one warned me that she looked half dead," she sobbed, and despite what a horrid bigot she was, I felt a wave of pity for her. "God, I feel so... helpless!"  
  
I knew exactly how she felt.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note  
  
Gah. DONE. Now I have a 9am class, so wish me luck and pray that I don't sleep through it.  
  
Here there be plot!  
  
Reviews:  
  
sashlea: if you watch the series, Sesshoumaru always refers to himself as "This Sesshoumaru" - I think it's a nobility arrogance thing that yes, Rin must have picked up. And I hope Sandalwood enjoy's it, it's "freaky" on purpose!  
  
Neo Genesis1: glad you're glad! Heres' your update, at 4am. 9am lecture what...?  
  
Pallas Athena: one Dramatic climax coming your way! And aren't people like Az's mom SCARY? I know a born-again Christian like that and she freaks me out.  
  
Ariane: I ENJOY being evil. And Cliffhanger and Plot are great friends of mine!  
  
InuyashazFukaiMori: It's nice to see fluffy-sama laying a smackdown every once and a while, isn't it? And of course she won't heed him - she's STUPID. And sleep? Sleep is for the WEAK! BWA-hA! ... and I'm weak so I'm going to bed now...  
  
Jaye: Well, he's not NARAKU... And Time paradoxes intrigue me. Would Aislin's name have been the same if Kouga hadn't slipped up? Who knows!  
  
Kataionna: *whines like an impatient child* 


	11. Exorcist

Wolf  
  
Part Ten: "Exorcist"  
  
by Vega  
  
"Out," the young demon said under his breath, turning to me. Behind him, the woman sprang immediately to her feet.  
  
I raised a hand to indicate to her that it was alright - I had it all under control. Hesitantly she sat once again and peered down into her daughter's face. I allowed the wolf to push me into the hall. Once the door was closed he dismissed the man standing guard outside it with a promise to call him if the girl's condition changed.  
  
I crossed my arms over my chest and waited him out.  
  
"What are you doing, Amphitrion?" He immediately asked, and threw his hands into the air in frustration. "And what's all this bullshit about all youkai being evil? You know as well as I do that--"  
  
"–that you all have monster blood flowing in your veins!" I finished for him, and he paused in mid-sentence, stunned. It was amusing, seeing him flustered. He didn't understand. I was enjoying this.  
  
"That it's a person's actions that makes them good or evil, and not their genetics." He took a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. "You damned near got kicked out of the Shrine for arguing that, and you go back on it now?! Listen, I don't know what this woman said to you, but we haven't hurt Az."  
  
"You stole her away! Kidnapped her straight from her bed," I couldn't resist throwing back in his face, knowing perfectly well that it was a lie. The person who had taken her that night was me.  
  
"It wasn't me!" he protested. "I found her! Took care of her!"  
  
I flicked my head in the direction of the room. "She doesn't look 'taken care of' to me."  
  
"You'll see," the wolf prince nodded, sure of himself. "If she... AS SOON as she wakes up, she'll tell you. Her mom has a thing against us - I wouldn't be surprised if she'd made shit up to get you over here to help her."  
  
"I will talk to the poor child when she awakens, and I will discern the truth."  
  
The wolf narrowed his eyes at me. "WE will talk to her. I won't leave her alone in there with anybody, crazy friend or no - she's my mate."  
  
"She does not belong to you," I snapped, fishing out another ofuda. I have always marvelled that they don't burn this borrowed ningen flesh, but who am I to complain? The wolf took a gratifying step backwards.   
  
"She doesn't want to be with her Mom, either."  
  
I smiled, knowing I had him trumped. "We'll be removing the child now."  
  
His hands balled into fists and I could hear him growling. "You won't TOUCH her. She's not going ANYWHERE until the doctors say it's okay."  
  
"Begone," I hissed again, and the wolf once more threw his hands in the air in a gesture of frustration.  
  
"I'm going for a walk. I'll talk to you when you've remembered our friendship, and you've come to your senses, Amp," he said to me, then turned to the guard who had wandered away a few paces to give us privacy. "Hey you - no one in or out except those two. Keep an eye on this one," he jerked his head in my direction and made no secret of his misconceptions right in front of me. "Leave the door open when he goes in and if he so much as pulls a stick of bubble gum from his pockets, tie him up."  
  
The guard nodded again, clearly confused with the situation, but willing to perform his part in it. Of course, once Kouga was gone, it would be easy enough to just kill the ningen guard and rush in there, snap the woman's neck, and rip the Shikon Shard from the hanyou's body.  
  
I opted to wait, instead, musing, smiling, happy with the knowledge that soon I would have that arrogant wolf begging for his life at my feet. And that was a much better prize than the Shikon Shard alone could afford me - betrayed blood to taint it with.  
  
I leaned back against the wall in the corridor and closed my eyes, allowing a half smile to come to my lips. Betrayed blood indeed. How hurt he would look when this body destroyed him, how confused. How like the delicious expression on that miko Kikyou and the cursed Inu Yasha's faces, when I had pitted them against one another.  
  
How easy to take a body and manipulate a soul - how amusing the consequences.  
  
I am not that old fool.  
  
I am not the one that had been 'friends' with this pathetic Ookami Youkai.  
  
That old houshin has not been in control of his body since his fortieth birthday, when he got spectactularly drunk at his own party and his defensives slipped enough to allow me entrance.   
  
I had been watching him, of course. I knew the Shikon Shard was nearby, could smell it's power, and I needed a body again. What body better suited to me than the friend of a youkai? One that I could use to destroy him, to claim the Shikon, to poison it with the hatred of love turned sour.  
  
And confidently, the youkai was one who had attempted to do away with me in the first place. Ah, fate was being particularly kind on that day.  
  
And oh what a joy to have snuck in the back door, only to find that fool Miroku, of all people, staring back at me, stunned. The Wolf Prince and the Lech Monk, friends once more. It warmed my heart. Ha!   
  
It only took a moment, and he was far too surprised to stop me.  
  
I delighted in the knowledge that I had effectively eliminated one of those who had long ago hunted me, and was well on my way to destroying a second. Oh, Miroku would be reborn again, for certain, and I would delight it killing him again.  
  
To his credit, he put up a good fight. But I knew his secret fear - the fear of being trapped forever in a windy hell reality - and I used it against his psyche mercilessly. Imprisoned forever in his own mind in a wind-barred box, I was able to slip in and take control of his physical form.  
  
His wife took a very long time to figure it out, and by the time realization struck her, so did my deathblow. Their children were equally easy prey: far too trusting. The girl closed her eyes and tried to pretend that it was all just a bad dream while I violated her in her father's body. I granted that wish and sent her to her eternal slumber soon thereafter.  
  
The young boy fought deliciously, his pain and confusion an aphrodisiac. I held on to that one, pulling out the sensations as I pulled out his intestines, slowly, carefully, so that he would stay alive. Humans are fragile, weak vessels, however, and after twenty or so hours, after I'd finished peeling all his flesh off his body like a ripe fruit's, his spirit managed to escape my grasp.  
  
Leaving the corpses to rot where they lay I only made a cursory effort to wash the blood off my hands before I left the house. I walked, my nose testing the air, my senses guiding me.  
  
Yes, I could feel it. So close.  
  
That why I chose this old man. It was near... so near...  
  
And then I bumped into it, literally.  
  
The young woman looked up at me, her blue eyes burning behind her ridiculous violet sunglasses, and I knew her in an instant.   
  
Here was the girl I had broken so long ago - fresh, pure, uncorrupted.  
  
Mine to do with as I wished.   
  
Mine to claim and cleave and hurt, and break all over again.  
  
I knew suddenly where the power I so yearned for resided within her. I knew where she harboured the Shikon Shard for, in her future and my past, I had been the one to rip it out of her.  
  
Time paradoxes be damned, I WANTED it, and I wanted it NOW.  
  
With that little sliver of glass, I could be CORPOREAL again.  
  
  
  
"Girl," I said, and grabbed her right arm as she moved to step around me. I marvelled that the flesh was whole there, even as I knew that within a few years it would be horribly and irreversibly marred. I also knew how to mar her self confidence, undermine her logical mind, hit her with that which she most feared - being different. "Girl, You're one of them."  
  
"Them?" she echoed, her eyes narrowing in confusion. I could see the thoughts flashing though her head, their contents all but written on her forehead. I wondered if in this state, before she was traumatized by the pain of the youkai's attack, she was aware of her own hanyou nature.  
  
Behind me I heard the two other ningen girls that my hanyou had been walking with, whispering and whimpering. I had allowed them to pass by me, unscathed, but not this one. They didn't know what to do - weak indecisive humans.  
  
"C'mon, Az, let's go!" one said and I smiled slightly. No one was going anywhere.  
  
"You're one of them," I repeated, enjoying my hanyou's confusion and the tang of her fear pervading the air, tickling my nose delightfully. This houshin, I had discovered as I had shrugged on his outercoat to cover the blood and gobbets of flesh that painted my shirt front, made habit of carrying ofuda in his pockets. I reached now for one of the holy incantation papers to shock and scare my hanyou with - in her startlement I would haul her up over my shoulder and make off with my prize, before her friends would even be able to react to the flare of fire the ofuda would raise when it touched her skin.  
  
I paused in mid-gesture, however, when a younger man's voice rang out: "Let her go, Amphitron."  
  
Amphitron, apparently, was the name of my host body. I looked up to find the owner of the voice standing just down the sidewalk with his feet apart and his chest thrust arrogantly forward, his hands balled into fists at his side. His unnaturally blue eyes were narrowed and it only took me a second to recognize him.  
  
This man was Kouga, the Prince of the Northern Wolf Tribe Youkai, and one of the bastards that had stolen my fleshy form from me. I hated him in an instant, and peeled back my lips from yellowed teeth. It made my girl flinch, which pleased me.  
  
Again, the old bitterness flared in me at seeing his flawless form: how was it that this youkai, this weakling wolf, had managed to survive the centuries intact, while I had to jump from host body to host body, like a sort of poltergeist parasite, in order to survive, desperately seeking out any sign of the Shikon no Tama so I could return to my former glory.  
  
I hesitated before I answered him, unsure of the whole of the history between this host body and the hated youkai. I had only ever seen them talking together, which is what had made up my mind.  
  
"Stay out of this, youkai," I finally decided on saying, "I'm going to purify her."  
  
It was a bland faced lie, of course. I had no intentions of purifying either her or the Shard within her. But this is what a Houshin would say.  
  
"She doesn't need purifying," the young man said, and I could tell that he was annoyed, but still unwilling to attack this frame I wore. Such were the advantages of body-snatching. "She's fine, you old crazy."  
  
His arrogance made me want to rip his face off. I settled for a slight snarl. Then he had the audacity to walk up to us and STAND between the girl and I, trying to pry my fingers off her arm. Seeing red I slapped the ofuda I held down on his hand and was gratified to hear the harsh sizzling sound as it burned his flesh.  
  
"Youch!" he yelped, jumping backwards, "You silly bugger! What was that for!" Unfortunately, his violent movement dislodged my grip on my hanyou and she managed to escape and run. I made to go after her but the wolf zipped around to block my path.  
  
I rose an arm to strike at him, but this ningen body was too slow and he kicked me in the gut. I was set flying backwards into the pavement.  
  
"Silly bugger," the wolf repeated again, lowering his foot and waiting for me to regain my feet. "How many times do I have to tell you? This one is mine. I'm taking care of it. Stick to the evil ones, okay?"   
  
Then he turned on his heel and stalked after my girl and her compatriots.  
  
I spat out a mouth full of thin, bitter, blood, and decided not to pursue.   
  
So, Kouga had an interest in this one, did he?  
  
Perhaps because he was intimate with her in the past. Oh, I knew. She had been my eyes and ears inside that wolf den, without even realizing it. I had known when he had lay with her, claiming her for his mate while still pursuing the hanyou's miko girl for her Shikon-Sight.  
  
Perhaps he had waited all these centuries to see her again? Perhaps he sought to re-establish the affection? Perhaps he sought to claim her?  
  
I had shook my head and shuffled away. I had stuffed all of the houshin's ID and plastic money cards and cash into my pants pockets, and it was time for me to stick with my original plan and vanish for a while before the authorities discovered the 'present' I had left behind at this man's house.  
  
Now that I knew what city the Shikon Shard resided in, it was only a matter of time.  
  
~~~  
  
Ten years have passed since that day.  
  
I glance over at the guard, waiting for his eyes to meet mine. The instant they do, they catch on fire. I grin and he screams, his voice betraying his agony as the tissue bubbles and decays inside his head. He slaps his hands over his face and reels away, mouth opened to call for help.   
  
I gesture at him, and his voice suddenly dies, the flesh of his voicebox suffering the same fate as that of his eyes. It makes me laugh.  
  
I chuckle as I push back the door to my hanyou's lavishly appointed hospital room. Wherever we are, no expense was spared to make her comfortable. They must think she was some sort of hero.  
  
I find myself looking down into the sleeping face of the girl I had so badly maimed, five centuries earlier. Modern medicine is indeed impressive - she almost looks a pure and complete as the day I found her in the Demon Exterminator's Village.  
  
But something is wrong - something is different about her now than when I last sensed her.  
  
When I had last communicated with her, via her dreams, she still held the power of hte Shikon Shard within her womb. Now, I could smell the faint perfume of miko power in her, got from her ancestors, no doubt, although I knew for certain that untrained she would have no access to it. But I could not find the shard itself.  
  
It was no longer inside her body!  
  
With a suppressed snarl, I wondered if it resided with the wolf that I had just allowed to walk away. No, I would have felt it within him. The only reason I had not known right away that my hanyou was without her shard was the damned interfering miko throb.  
  
So, someone had taken it from her body - a visual picture of which floated through my mind and amused me as I thought of the pain she must have endured to have such interments inside her - and hidden it somewhere.  
  
Someone who knew what it was, and what it was used for.  
  
I would just have to find the person and decapitate them.  
  
A sound interrupted my musing, and her mother stood behind me, wringing her hands. "You're a priest, right?" she said, and I finally turned to face her, putting on my gentlest face. "Her Uncle... he's some sort of demon. He tried to kill me - you saw the bruises on my neck. And that boy that hangs around her, makes faces at her that I don't like, he has a TAIL. I forbade her from seeing him, over the phone, told her to get away from them, but she wouldn't listen. Either that or they won't let her go! She won't wake up - they've drugged her! You have to save my daughter from them! You have to drive out whatever it is that they're doing to ... to make her so... compliant! I taught her better than this - she can't be disobeying me of her free will!"  
  
"Of course they're manipulating her," I said softly, and went over to embrace the woman as a gesture of comfort. I allowed her to sob onto my shoulder, musing that it would be so much easier to just kill the useless blight now and tear apart the hospital for the missing Shikon Shard.   
  
Far easier... but far less amusing.  
  
I pushed the woman gently away, so that I may look into her face, and said, "But I need you to do something for me."  
  
"Anything!" She said desperately.  
  
"I can sense an.... an incompleteness in your child." I smiled charmingly again, watching as she sunk deeper into my spell. "They took something from her. It will be a rose colour, looking like a small sliver of glass. I need that to restore your daughter. Do you think you can find it for me?"  
  
The woman nodded, her eyes red rimmed from days of crying, her cheeks and lids puffy.  
  
"Good girl," I crooned, and petted her hair. "Good girl." She sniffled against me, and I pulled away. "You go talk to the doctors, they'll trust you because you are her mother."  
  
"What are you going to do?"  
  
I smiled, and had it not been on the lips of this body, and on my last one, she would have shrunk from me in terror. "My friend and I had a fight. I need to talk to him and settle it."  
  
~~~  
  
Author's notes:  
  
Well? You guys get it? Huh? Huh? ^___^ I hope all this jumpign around from one character's pov to another isn't too confusing. I started to write this chapter from Kouga's, didn't like it and moved to the Mother's, and didn't like that either. Az's would have been pointless, 'cause she's asleep. So - Amp!  
  
And for those wondering, I did re-upload this chapter, as I found an ungoldy amount of mistakes in this one too. It jumped around way too much. I blame the fact that I have not been getting more than three hours of sleep a night this past week, as I've been getting used to attending classes again.  
  
As it's Saturday, I plan on devoting my time to finishing the story, like I promised.   
  
That said, if it's not, I apologize. School is going to be very busy this semester for me (I have seven classes, plus I have to direct a play - that's more hours of work a week than there ARE in a week!), so I think this story has to end here with "Wolf" I debated continuing afterwards, to turn this into a full fledged trilogy, but I don't think I can. Having confessed as much, anyone willing to give a go at it is more than welcome. All you have to do if promise me that you'll link to my website, and let me beta it first to make sure the characters are still acting the way they ought to. ^_^ If anyone wants to e-mail me seriously about this, I'll even share my back-burner ideas.  
  
Reviews:  
  
Kataionna: Still love Amp now?  
  
sashlea: Evil Miroku IS a scary thought. Imagine how horrid he could be with all those magical adn martial abilities, not to mention his penchant for letchary.  
  
Jaye: I don't know how you do it. Are you in my BRAIN? You guess what's happening next so WELL. But I don't htink you'll anticipate THIS plot twist...  
  
Pallas Athena1: I don't know how I "come up with it". Sometimes I story arrives in my head fully written, other times all I have is one sentence. The plot seems to work istelf out as I go - you wou;dn't beleive the angst I had about taking the original middle section of this chapter away from Chap 16 and putting it here... _  
  
nuyashazFukaiMori: Sleep? Who needs SLEEP? I'm updating as fast as I can. I hope you enjoy.  
  
Ariane Adora : Yes, being evil is often fun. My nickname is "Harry Potter" because of my glasses, but I hang out with Draco, so she gets me into a whole lot of trouble! When it comes to fics, I enjoy throwing in twists - I sometimes run things by Draco and she'll just look at me and say, "... you're sadistic, you know that? Right?" ^_______^ 


	12. Dreamwalk

Wolf  
  
Part Twelve: "Dreamwalk"  
  
by Vega  
  
With my hands shoved in the pockets of my duster, they remained safe from the cutting chill of the late autumn wind. My heart, however, had no such protection.  
  
How could Amphitrion say such horrible things? Worse than that, I could see by the look in his eyes that he believed them, too. What happened in the ten years since I last saw the pup on that sidewalk?  
  
Did he resent me for kicking him like that?  
  
No, I had physically hurt him many times before that, and he had always forgiven me before.  
  
I had given Amphitrion over to the Shinto Shrine in his youth, after I had found him on the streets in Greece, and he had he had grown into a powerful young houshin before I had even come back to visit him a year later. I admit, if I had not waited as long, perhaps the hold the elder houshin had on him wouldn't have been so strong, but I am a wanderer by nature, and a Shinto Shrine is not place that a full blooded youkai is prone to wander by often.  
  
When I had arrived, I found Amphirion armed with holy rosaries and ofuda, being encouraged by the houshin leader to purify and essentially destroy me. I had laughed at his efforts and beaten the boy back instantly. In an earlier day, I would have killed the child to spite the master, but it was the 20th century, and I had seen enough bloodshed over the past fifty decades to want to cause any more.  
  
Besides, I LIKED the child.  
  
Instead I pinned Ampitrion to the stone of the Shrine's courtyard, nipped at his nose playfully, and said, "You're gonna have to be stronger than that if you intend to kill the Prince of the Wolves, little friend."  
  
He struggled and spat at me, and I sat on his stomach deliberately, too keep him from getting up. He squirmed more and I just laughed.  
  
"Get off me, monster!" he screamed, and I shook my head.  
  
"Monster?" I repeated. "I gave you my watch and you call me monster? Tut tut, what ungrateful words. Did the weakling old Houshin teach them to you?"  
  
He flicked his gaze to the old man, who stood there, standing stock still, confused and scared.  
  
"Well... he said..." Amphitrion faltered and I sighed.  
  
"I want to tell you something that was once told to me," I said, and reached out to take the useless rosary from his left hand. As I spoke, I wrapped it around his right, so the beads crossed the palm. "It is a person's actions that make them good or evil... not their genetics."  
  
The boy stared in awe at his right hand, then said, without dragging his eyes away, "Who said that?"  
  
"You did."  
  
His gaze flicked up to me, and I got off him and grabbed the front of his indigo houshin robes in a   
  
great handful and hauled him to his feet.   
  
He looked more like Miroku now than ever, and it made my heart twist strangely. I didn't recall ever having had any special affection for the perverted monk, but looking back at my memories of him now, I remember how nice it was just to spend time in the company of another male who understood what I had been through, the wars, Naraku, the death... and had not been a rival.  
  
Although Inu Yasha and I had ceased to fight, there was still a bit of the territorialism that came of two canines more or less sharing the same pack and land. With Miroku, on the other hand, there was no pissing contest. There was just the simple companionship, where the atmosphere was relaxed and the conversation fascinating.  
  
I learned more about the powers and responsibilities of a houshin in our talks than I ever would have in a fight with him, and he in turn began to revolutionize the way the mystical arts approached youkai by sending off scrolls of what he had learned about friendly youkai from Inu Yasha and me to other temples.  
  
Eventually, the temples surrounding the Bone Eater's Well learned to accept the help and existence of those youkai and hanyou with no evil in their hearts, which made it easier for Inu Yasha and Kagome's offspring to get by in the world.  
  
I had mourned deeply when his own mortality had finally caught up to the old monk and he had passed away.  
  
And yet, here he was again, my friend, a child as I had never known him. I reached out and patted Amphitrion's head - "Miroku-sama was a wise and good friend," I said, then deliberately turned to look at the old Houshin. "And some people around here would be wise to dig up his scrolls and take a glance at them!"  
  
I crouched before the boy once more and said, "Amp-kun, you've gotten very strong, but you have a lot more to learn. Be careful that you are taught the proper things."  
  
With one more head rub, I was up over the wall of the Shrine and gone, satisfied that his training would now include a more tolerant methodology.  
  
And yet... my old friend Amphitrion had told me that I could not have my mate, and that he hated me for the very blood that he had sought to protect from the old houshin whenever I went back to visit him at the Shrine.  
  
I stopped briefly, and shook my head. Around me were all sorts of early morning pedestrians. A young lady rushing home from a night shift at a fast food restaurant. An older man on the way to catch a subway. Children walking to school, bags clutched under their arms. A woman on a cell phone, walking her dog.  
  
I looked around me at all these people and frowned.  
  
Five hundred years ago I would have killed them for just daring to be near me. Perhaps that did justify the insults that Amp had thrown. What was I, if not a murderer bastard? But I had given that way of life up with the death of my comrades. No longer was I a Prince, although I maintained the title to intimidate.   
  
I had no right any longer to decide the fate of those within my realms. It made me wonder - did I have a right before? In the past, my rule had been absolute. I had been the leader, the one whose word was law - if I wanted to kill someone for spitting an insult at me, I had the authority. But now, in the twenty first century, where the children were taught that all life is precious and race means nothing... how could someone with that knowledge, that understanding and acceptance, trust me or love me at all?  
  
Amphitrion had every right to call me a monster - there was more innocent blood on my hands than I would like to admit.  
  
  
  
And yet, I had worked to erase that blood, hadn't I? I had fought Naraku, vowed never to kill an innocent human for food again, fought those youkai with evil hearts just as Kagome had... and I had protected my mate.  
  
But somehow, when I was still a killer, Kagome had seen the good in me. And so had my Aisilin.  
  
It confused me. What was I then? Could I have been a monster if I had held the affection of two human (more or less) women?  
  
I sighed again and continued to walk.  
  
I was just about to turn back to the hospital, hoping Amp had cooled down enough to speak rationally with me, and hoping I had done the same, when a voice called to me from a near-by alley:   
  
"Hey! Kouga!"  
  
I turned and walked into it in one smooth motion, smelling the caller before I could hear him. It was Amphitrion.  
  
  
  
"Amp," I said cautiously, slowing to a halt before him. "What do you want?"  
  
"I just want to talk," he said, coming out of the shadows of the back of the alley. It was blocked off by a fence, and there was the predictable piles of garbage strew about, casting large and vaguely ominous shadows. His palms were open and turned upwards.  
  
"I wanted to talk too," I admitted, smiling. I looked down to kick a can. "Although I was hoping it would be somewhere cleaner." I wrinkled my nose to prove my point. "Maybe somewhere with coffee?"  
  
"Here's just fine for what I have planned," Amphitrion said, and I looked up, sharply.   
  
  
  
I didn't have time to ask what he meant before the black lightning bolts that erupted from his fingertips slammed into my body, throwing me into a brick wall and unconsciousness.  
  
~~~  
  
The Hospital  
  
~~~  
  
I opened my eyes slowly, aware of the sleep crusting my eyelashes together, and wondered how long I had been out. I remembered immediately where I was and what had sent me crashing to the floor - I had smelled that dreaded sandalwood aroma.  
  
And yet I'd had no dreams of my former captor, the evil Naraku. I was half relieved and half frightened. Relieved because it meant that it hadn't been him. Frightened because it meant someone else had learned the potion that sent me into dizzying blackness and nightmares. Whoever this person was, I was going to be sure to sic Kouga on them.  
  
Thinking of Kouga...  
  
I tried to turn my face to the side, where the chair he liked best was, only to be stopped by the wires and masks tugging at my face. Annoyed I reached up and pulled off the oxygen mask and tugged at the wires up my nose until the tape gave way and I was able to pull the disgusting thing out of my sinus cavity.  
  
The motion of the plastic tube passing through my nostrils made me sneeze, and I sat up to wipe my nose on my sleeve. That caused more tugging at my arms and with a snarl I pulled all of the sticky pads and needles away from my flesh. It made some of the more annoying machines beep and whine in protest, so I reached down to the giant plug by my bedside and yanked that out too.  
  
Ah, blissful silence.   
  
Once again I turned to the chair that Kouga would be in, only to find it depressingly empty.  
  
"Kouga?" I said, wondering if he was just in the washroom, or if he had stepped out to grab something to eat. I knew he wouldn't just LEAVE, especially after the last thing I had said before I had passed out in his arms.  
  
"He left," another, unexpected voice said, on the other side of me, and I whirled around in the bed to find my mother seated on a chair to my left.  
  
"M-mom...?" I stuttered. A thousand emotions flashed through my mind in an instant. Hate for her hatred of my family; betrayal for her leaving me to them alone; suspicions as to why she was here; relief to see her; a swelling of love; confusion; anger... in the end, the need to just be a little girl enfolded in the arms of her mother won out, and I flung myself at her, sobbing.  
  
She grabbed me and I could feel the hope and desperation in her that reflected my own. "MOM!" I cried and pressed my face to her neck, heaving.  
  
"Shhh, shhh, baby," she said softly, petting my head and squeezing me close, "I'm here now, baby, I'm here..."  
  
"I... I was s-so s-scared, M-Mom..." admitted in great hiccoughs, "I missed you s-so m-much..."  
  
"I'm here now," she said again, and right then I think those were the most soothing words I'd ever heard in my life. "I won't let anyone hurt you ever again."  
  
My sobs turned to laughed and I sat back, wiping my eyes on my sleeves. "I think Kouga-kun may have a thing or two about who gets to protect me..."  
  
The relief that had previously adorned my mother's face crumbled and gave way to anger. "That horrid man with the ponytail?"  
  
  
  
"Horrid?" I said, settling back into the pillow. "What do you mean, 'horrid'?"  
  
Mom sat on the edge of my bed and leaned forward to press her palm to my cheek. "I met that Kouga! He's a demon! His eyes were glowing and he had fangs and he yelled at us and wouldn't let us in to see you!"  
  
I drew my eyebrows down in confusion. "I'm sure he was just worried. I passed out, and the doctors probably told him to keep any visitors away. He was probably just distracted with worry."  
  
"He's a DEMON, Aisilin. He's one of THEM."  
  
  
  
I pushed my mother's hand away, agahst. "He's not a 'them', Mom! There's nothing WRONG with the youkai in our family!"  
  
As her face got redder, I felt my heart sinking further. Oh, Mom... why couldn't you understand?  
  
"They are NOT part of our family! WE are not monsters!"  
  
"I am a HANYOU, MOTHER!" I screamed, unable to hold it back any longer. Mom jerked backwards and her face turned completely white. "Why can't you accept that!? Look at these eyes! These teeth! Look at my nails, mom! They're too long and sharp to be natural! Why can't you accept the fact that I am NOT HUMAN!"  
  
I didn't see the slap coming.  
  
The implied motivation behind it stung more than the actual blow.  
  
I could hear my mother shuddering and sobbing, but I kept my eyes closed, and my head turned to the side, where the force of the strike had sent it.  
  
I took a deep breath and held it, forcing the tears that stung the back of my eyes back down my throat. The room was deathly silent.  
  
"I love him."  
  
I heard her sharp intake of breath, but she didn't say anything.   
  
Slowly, I turned my face back to hers, then opened my eyes, glaring at my mother from under my hair. I could feel the blood throbbing in my cheek where mom had hit me.  
  
"I love him," I said again, realizing that it was true, "and he saved my life. Kouga is NOT 'horrid'."  
  
"Oh, honey," she whispered, "I thought that way about your father too, but he was just a betraying sonofa--"  
  
  
  
"Don't you DARE insult my father!" I snapped and she immediately pressed her lips together. "My father gave up EVERYTHING to be with you! He gave up friends, family, and his homeland to move to the United States with you. He even denounced his HERITAGE and pretended to be HUMAN for you. Papa was a good man and he LOVED us."  
  
"But he was a DEMON," she protested, and I could see that she had spent a long time building up these beliefs within herself. She couldn't admit that Papa had meant anything to her, or she would have also to admit that she had been wrong all these years. It would drive her insane.  
  
"Papa wasn't evil," I reached out and grasped her hands in mine. "And Kouga isn't either. Evil Youkai exist, Mom, I've seen them. One of them put me in this hospital." She gasped in horror, but I plowed forward, "But the youkai in our family are GOOD. They're descended from a priestess warrior and a hanyou who destroyed the youkai that hurt me. They're all GOOD PEOPLE."  
  
"Sesshoumaru..." she hesitated, and I jumped in with:  
  
"Is good too!"  
  
"He... he threatened me!" she hissed back and moved her head aside to bare the hand-shaped bruises on her neck. I stared at them for a long time, unable to respond. She turned her eyes back to me, and they were narrowed slits.  
  
  
  
"You provoked him," I said softly, "Otherwise he wouldn't have done that."  
  
"And I'm supposed to leave my baby with people who are inclined to kill if 'provoked'?!"  
  
"Anyone can kill if properly provoked!" I rebutted, thinking of the viciousness with which I had attacked Kohaku when he had tried to rape me. "Human or otherwise!"  
  
"I refuse!" Mom shouted, and stood up. I couldn't tell what she was refusing - to believe what I said? That people could be evil? That demons could be good? To accept the situation? To allow me to love Kouga? All of the above?  
  
Something inside me pinged to life. I don't know what it was but for a moment I could feel the familiar flare of warmth in my abdomen, the one that indicated that the Shikon Shard was powering up. Which didn't make sense to me for the Shard was in a glass vial in a safe in Uncle Sess' house.  
  
"You have to believe me," I snarled, and we were both shocked by the intensity in my voice, "Kouga saved my life."  
  
  
  
"He was probably the one who put you in the hospital!" she countered, deaf and disbelieving as ever.  
  
"You want to see who put me in the hospital?" I snapped, and I felt the warm pulsing in my stomach flare outwards, "FINE!"  
  
~~~  
  
When next I opened my eyes, I was standing in a familiar little chamber made up on polished tropical woo and rice paper screen doors. I saw my mother kneeling before a person asleep under a sky-blue robe on a futon, reddish hair spread out over the fabric of the head-rest. The right arm of the sleeper was bandaged in blood-spotted linens.  
  
The sleeper was me.  
  
Mom put out her hands and tried to touch my face, which was bruised and swollen from the youkai attack I had suffered, but her hands passed right through. With a startled gasp she yanked her hands back to her chest and held herself, crying.  
  
"It's okay, Mom," I said and she turned to face me, her knees skidding on the hard wooden floor. Her eyes were huge. "We can't touch anything here, I don't think. I don't think we're here for real."  
  
"Where are we!?" she screamed, "what's going on?!"  
  
"I think it's the Shikon no Tama," I said softly. "I don't have any of the shards, but I think it left behind some... I don't know..." I folded my hands over my womb. "Some residue of power, or something. I just wished that I could make you understand, and here we are."  
  
"Where... where's here?"  
  
I looked around me, and saw Kagewaki crouched in the corner by the brazier, his hands folded inside of his haori and his eyes closed. His head was bent forward and I could tell that he was asleep. By the grin on his face, I'd say he was invading my nightmares.  
  
There was a sharp cry behind me, and Mom and I both turned to watch as my sleeping self jerked and spasmed, crying out in pain. Kagewaki abruptly stood and walked towards my sleeping self, and drew a knife from his belt.  
  
"Stop it!" Mom cried and lunged for him, but she only passed right through, unable to affect the demon lord.  
  
I watched, rivetted, as Kagewaki knelt and lifted my bad arm, sliced away some of the bandages on my wrist, then lifted the appendage to his face and bit down. My sleeping self screamed in pain, and I wanted nothing more than to slam the back of this jackass' head with a well-placed kick. But I knew I would be no more effective than my Mother.  
  
"What's he DOING?" Mom asked, panicking.  
  
"It's okay, Mom," I said, walking around Kagewaki to grab her hand. I turned and led her to the rice paper screen that separated the chamber from the courtyard and took a deep breath. Then I walked forward and we passed through it, finding ourselves on the porch. "This has already happened, and as you can see, I'm okay."  
  
I looked down at myself, and marvelled silently that my dream-self's right arm was perfectly fine. Mom noticed too and reached out to touch me. Her hand was warm and soft, and very solid. "Your arm is okay..."  
  
"He did it," I said, jerking my head to indicate the demon lord we had left behind. "His name is Naraku, and he's as evil as they come. I was his prisoner for weeks, and he toyed with me and tortured me mercilessly. Whatever demon it was that bit me, I'll be that he set it on me."  
  
Mom made as if to turn and run back into the room, but I grabbed her arms in both of mine. "There's nothing you can do! This has already happened!"  
  
"But I have to save you!"  
  
I jerked her backwards and sent us both tumbling off the porch. We stumbled but both managed to land on our feet. "Don't you think I want to do something too?!" I shouted and she finally stopped struggling and stared me in the face. "Don't you think I wouldn't love to take that knife he has and plunge it into his black little heart! I'd kill him if I had half a chance!" Mom's eyes went wide and she blanched. I think this aggressive bloodthirsty side of me scared her. Truth be told, it scared me too.  
  
"But I can't," I pressed, "I can't. This has already happened, and if you go in there, you'll just be more disturbed."  
  
"Why?" Mom insisted, grabbing my shoulders and pushing her face close to mine. "What is he DOING?"  
  
"I can't remember everything," I said softly, "But I think he's raping me."  
  
There was a long and stunned silence. Then the tears pooled up in my Mother's eyes and spilled down her cheeks.  
  
I reached up and took my mom's hands and said, "Come on. I'm going to see if I can fast-forward this thing." I closed my eyes and concentrated on the moment on the mountain path when Naraku had dumped my half-dead body in wolf territory.   
  
There was a meaty slapping sound and I opened my eyes to follow my mother's line of sight. Behind me was Naraku, laughing at Kohaku in his full warrior's regalia, holding my other self up by the collar of her filthy and torn robe.   
  
We were standing in the middle of a dense brush of forest, and could just make out the other three people by the pathway through the foiliage.  
  
My other self's face was already swelling with the black eye, and there was blood all over my right arm and dripping from my temple. My hands were dangling loosely and my ankles bent in a way that showed I was no supporting my own weight. My lip was split, and the blue of the robe was almost entirely red, the cloth soaking up the blood from the long gashes that I knew crisscrossed my torso.  
  
Kohaku flung me down and I could hear the sharp snap of my ribs breaking. Beside me, Mom jumped and flinched.  
  
Naraku reached down and grabbed a great handful of my hair and I watched as I jerked myself away. Naraku was left with a handful of hair which he snarled at and tossed into the wind. His hand shot out and he wrapped it around my throat, his nails digging in.  
  
Mom began to move, but I grabbed her tightly and whispered, "Don't bother. This has already happened."  
  
Her only answer was a shuddering sob.  
  
"You're pathetic and worthless and do not merit the waste of poison it would take to kill you," Naraku's hissing voice floated across the courtyard to where we were standing, and I shuddered again to hear it. It made me cold all over. I saw my other self burst into fits of hysterics-induced laughter. "Do you find that amusing? I am going to leave you here. Right here. The wolf youkai roam these lands, Ashirinu. Vicious killers. Perhaps they are your ancestors, hm? You're going to be ripped apart by your own kin."  
  
With that he reached down and ripped the Shikon Shard earring off my ear, slammed me face-down into the dirt, then gave me a kick hard enough to flip me over onto my back, my upper body half concealed in the bushes and thick wild grass, my legs sprawled awkwardly on the path in just such a way as to command curiosity from a passer by.  
  
With another spine-shuddering laugh, Naraku and Kohaku vanished into a swirling vortex of darkness, and were gone.  
  
The moment they left, Mom lunged at my other self. She tried to grab her, to pull her onto the road, but again her hands passed through her. "You look dead!" she wailed to me as I approached behind her.  
  
"I almost was," I said softly. "I would have been if it weren't for Kouga."  
  
"Kouga? The man who yelled at us in the hospital?"  
  
As if on cue the scene shifted and time passed faster than I thought possible - the sun set in a matter of seconds and then I heard a wolf howling.  
  
"That's Kouga," I answered, gesturing to indicate the melody that was raised to the moon.   
  
There was a crashing sound and a scared looking wolf youkai - a fatter one than I ever remember seeing - clad in a strange grey kimono and fur over-vest, dashed past my mangled corpse and ran away, in the direction I knew a village to be.   
  
Well, that was odd. I didn't remember that happening. Of course, by the look on my other-self's face, I was too close to death to have noticed.   
  
A pack of wolves came springing out of the brush beside us, in pursuit of the youkai, and Mom screamed and fell back against me. I grabbed her and we took a few steps backwards. I recognized Kabau among the throng of panting and snarling animals.  
  
Kabau stopped the pursuit while the others ran on, and turned to my broken body. He approached carefully and started to snuffle at the dried blood on my legs. He then stepped over me to look down at my face, and licked it experimentally. He made a face that said he wasn't pleased with the taste and backed away, then threw back his head and howled.  
  
Leaning against me, my mother shuddered and hugged her tightly. "It's okay, he's a friend," I said softly. "That's Kabau... he looked after me when I was staying with the wolves."  
  
Kabau stopped howling, one ear swivelling in our direction ,and I held my breath. No, the wolf hadn't HEARD me, had it?  
  
"Kabau?" I said again, experimentally, and the wolf turned to face us entirely. There was no mistaking that he was seeing us, for there was nothing and no one behind me of interest when I checked. "You can see me?"  
  
He closed and opened his eyes in an approximation of a wolfy nod. I heard the distinctive howling wind that announced Kouga was approaching and hastily said, "Don't tell Kouga! I'm that girl down there, I'm a friend, but don't say you've seen me!"  
  
Obviously confused, but willing to believe me, the wolf nodded again and turned his attention to the approach of his prince.   
  
"Thank you, old friend," I whispered, and saw his ear twitch.  
  
Then the tornado of dust was upon us, and Kouga came skidding to a halt by my broken feet.  
  
"What's this?" he asked, flicking his bright blue gaze between my other self and Kabau. "D'you guys kill another one?"  
  
Kabau shook his ruff and whined and yipped for a moment. Then Kouga nodded. "Found her, eh? And you say she tastes like poison?"  
  
The wolf yipped and barked a bit more, and again Kouga nodded. "Yeah, okay, if she's part wolf like you say she is, then I guess she's our responsibility. You go help the rest of the guys track down that Shard Thief, and I'll get her back to the Den. Call me when you get him."  
  
Kabau turned and was off faster than I could see him go, and Kouga crouched down beside my broken form. Mom tensed, but I knew he wasn't going to hurt me. He pulled me upright and let me rest back on one of his thighs, he used one hand to steady my limp body, while the other cupped my face and studied it.  
  
"Hm," he snorted after a long while. "You're not half as ugly as a part human should be."   
  
Startling both my mother and I, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to my other self's slack and split ones, and held them there. I could tell by the working of his jaw that his tongue was inside my other self's mouth.  
  
For a second I was filled with righteous indignation. Beside me, Mom was sputtering obscenities.  
  
But when Kouga pulled away, his lips and tongue were covered with my blood, which he quickly slurped up and licked away. "Kabau is right, you do taste like a canine hanyou." I allowed myself to relax and hope that the only reason he had kissed me so throughly while I was unable to defend myself was that he wanted to taste my blood and that was the place where it was flowing freshest and fastest.  
  
He stood abruptly, cradling me in his arms, and started at me face again, his eyes lingering on my lips. Slowly, he closed his eyes and leaned down and gently kissed me again, this time far more hesitantly and chastely. "Not half so ugly at all..." he murmured, pulling away, then flung me up over his shoulder and was off, leaving my Mother and I breathing in the dust he kicked up.  
  
"Where is he going?" Mom asked in a whisper, and I let her go. She walked a few steps up the path, then turned back to me and said, "Where is he going?"  
  
"Back to the Wolf Den," I said, still slightly disturbed by the witnessing of Kouga and I's first kiss. I hadn't even been awake for it! "I'll stay there for a few weeks, before learning that Naraku was using me to spy on Kouga and his kin. They'll all be slaughtered, except for Kouga himself, his henchmen Ginta and Hakkaku, the wolf Kabau, and three or four of the other wolves. After that," I shrugged, "I'll figure out how to use the power of the Shikon Shard I have left and wish myself home."  
  
Mom was silent and I stared in the direction that Kouga had disappeared in. He looked older in the future, I realized. But only slightly. Here he looked like a teenager, and in my time, he appeared to be in his early twenties. So youkai DO age.  
  
"Come on, Mom," I said, and reached out and took her hand. "I'm not in the mood to re-live anything else."  
  
With a bright flash of magenta light, Mom and I were back in the lavish hospital room, I laying in my bed, and Mom asleep on top of me. I pushed her gently and she sat up abruptly.  
  
"Az!" she yelped, "What just happened?"  
  
"I don't know," I smiled, "But I think it was good. I'm just surprised... I didn't think... I mean, whatever power I might have had, I thought it would have left my body with the Shard."  
  
"The shard...?" she echoed, then her eyes widened. "Is it a pink piece of glass?"  
  
"Yeah," I nodded, wondering how much about this whole situation Kouga and Uncle Sess had told her. "But it's gone. The Doctor's removed it."  
  
Mom twisted her hands nervously. "Where did they put it?"  
  
Her nervousness set off alarm bells in my head. "Why?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.  
  
"Well, there's a man here, sweetie... a buddhist monk. I brought him here to get rid of the demons..." he face flushed momentarily, and I couldn't tell why. Perhaps she had finally realized that the demons around us did not mean to hurt me? I could only pray. "He told me that he needed that glass to help you."  
  
"Why on earth would he need a piece of the Shikon no Tama?" I wondered out loud. "How did he even know there was still one around?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Well, the Shikon no Tama, except for the piece that was inside me, was absorbed by my ancestor Inu Yasha hundreds of years ago, and ceased to exist when he died." I rubbed my hands across my eyes and the bridge of my nose, frustrated. "I don't like the sound of this."  
  
"We could ask him," Mom said and before I could tell her that I was suspicions of this guy's motivation, she opened the door and leaned out in the hall. "He's not there," she said and came back inside, letting the door fall closed behind her. "I wonder where he went?"  
  
The door slammed back open and thankfully Mom was far enough inside the room to avoid getting hit. Kouga strode in, looking a mess, hair wild and mussed, clothing torn and dirty, blood all down his chin and on his lips. His finger tips were stained as well, and I noticed with wide horrified eyes that he was deliberately trailing smears all over the door and walls.  
  
"Looking for Amphitrion?" he grinned, and I shuddered. His teeth were stained crimson as well. He did not sound like my Kouga. He sounded... colder.  
  
"Where is he?" Mom demanded, and I shrunk back wards in the bed, praying my mother would get the sense to dodge past him and run away. Something was WRONG.  
  
Kouga's grin got wider and his arm snapped out and grabbed my mother by her collar. He dragged her forward and pressed his bloody lips to her ear. But his eyes remained on me.  
  
"I killed him," he whispered, before tossing her hard into the air. Mom flew across the room and slammed into the wall beside my bed, falling, slumping face-down onto the floor. There was blood on the back of her head, and I screamed.  
  
Kouga leapt up and landed on all fours on my bed. He yanked the blanket taught, effectively lashing me down, and leaned over to hover above me, the blood on his face dripping down onto me.  
  
"Give us a kiss, honey," he hissed, and I barely had time to take a breath before he shoved his tongue down my throat.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's note:  
  
dun dun dun....  
  
Well, I just have one more chapter to write, then I can post the whole ending at once. (I write out of order and they're all finished already). Hopefully it can get done tonight. I'm actually surprised I wrote this much today!  
  
Also, go back and re-read chapter 11, because I re-posted it and added some info.  
  
And, if someone could tell me which chapter it popped up in, I realized that somewhere I wrote that Kouga was the Prince ofthe NORTHERN wolf tribes instead of the WESTERN. Eep. I need to fix that.  
  
Reviews:  
  
Pallas Athena1: Thank you. *bows* And he will... trust me.  
  
Kataionna: I'm glad you like it. Naraku is hard to love, isn't he? Originally this story was going to be a Naraku romance, but when it got right down to it, he was just too unloveable. But Az did have a crush on Kagewaki, so I guess that's close enough. So yes, it's safe to like Amp. As for the picture, it's a pity you can't draw the duster too, 'cause he likes it so much, but I won't complain. FANART! YAY! I LOVE FANART! And what was the something that you understand that was bugging you for a while?  
  
Lavender Valentine : My carpel tunnel isn't bad enough to warrent surgery yet, but that you for the confidence booster. I"m happy that you enjoyed "Spider", and that you found "Wolf".  
  
sashlea: Oh, it will be one heck of a fight! And I can't be rid of Naraku THAT easily. He's too good of a villain. As for Amphitrion's name... I'm a classics major and was reading a text book at the time. Amphitrion you see was the soldier-husband of Alcemene, the mother of Hercules. The night he perished on the battlefield, Zeus stole his form (some say his body, too), and visited Alcemene. The result of this "visit" being Hercules and his twin brother Iphecles. So, what better name to give to a character who his possesed by a powerful spirit?  
  
Skitzoflame: Yay for spelling Az right! And you're right, her mom is slap worthy. Hopefully this chapter both gives her the slap she needs, and proves that she's not all THAT bad, just blind and bigoted.  
  
InuyashazFukaiMori: ...and he just keeps getting sicker and more twisted. I'm actually really enjoying writing this sadistic bastard, just because he HAS no limitations! I think the "peeling of flesh" proves it, eh? I wonder how a fanartist would tackle that scene... and try cussing him out all you like - if you live long enough for the words to escape your throat. 


	13. Revelations

Wolf  
  
Part Thirteen: "Revelation"  
  
by Vega  
  
"Get offa me!" I screamed.  
  
Kouga shifted slightly, but only to transfer the weight that was on his hands back so he could free them up to grab my wrists and haul them above my head. The wrenching hurt and I screamed, a sound rewarded by a sharp bite on my lower lip.  
  
"Shut up, hanyou wench," he snapped. "I left no one is alive in this place to hear you."  
  
I turned my head to the side and wriggled, trying to get free. "Kouga, please stop it. My Mom is hurt...!"  
  
Above me Kouga sighed, and he sounded like he was a person trying to make a child understand something they could not - frustrated and amused and annoyed all at once. "That was the point, wench."  
  
"Kouga, what's WRONG with you?"  
  
The corner of his lips twitched upwards, revealing a sharply pointed fang, and I flinched backwards. For the briefest of seconds, his lovely blue eyes flashed crimson.  
  
And then I KNEW.  
  
"NARAKU!" I shrieked.  
  
He smiled and nodded, laughing. "Didn't think you'd escape me so easily, girl? I told you - you are mine."  
  
  
  
"Get off me!" I screamed again, ignoring the nauseating wave of deja vu.  
  
Kouga's warm, familiar body was pressed down on me, not with kindness but with force. He was trying to scare me. I could see the red flickering behind his eyes - the wide and Cheshire grin that displayed his fangs was Naraku's.  
  
I had seen it before, when he had been violating me, when he had been hurting me, when he had been at his worst, and enjoying every second of it. I lashed out with my leg, intending to nail him in the ribs, but Naraku's hand shot down and stopped me, pushing hard on my knee. I screamed in pain.  
  
"Let him go," I whined, "Let Kouga go, and I'll do anything you want."  
  
Naraku shook Kouga's head, and more of the blood on his face spattered onto mine. "There is nothing you could offer me that would make me give up such an advantageous body." He leaned in a kissed me again, and I gagged, tasting the blood on my lips, on my tongue.  
  
I felt the tell-tale burning lump of tears in my throat and I forced them back. No, now was NOT the time to burst into tears. My mother needed me - Kouga needed me. And if Naraku got his hands on the last shard - which I know he must be after, or why else would he be here? - the whole WORLD would need my help. I couldn't just breakdown in a sobbing MESS.   
  
Not this time.  
  
I had to fight.  
  
I screamed again, loud and long, shrill, knowing that it would hurt Kouga's sensitive ears. Naraku jerked backwards, clapping his hands to the sides of his head, like I hoped he would. I drew back and slugged the side of his face, and heard the popping of my fingers.  
  
It hurt like a bitch, but it was just powerful enough to shock and knock him off balance. Mentally, I apologized to Kouga - but I couldn't afford to do anything half-way with Naraku in control. I wrenched one leg free, pressing the other downwards in an attempt for leverage, and aimed my heel at his nose.  
  
I kicked but Naraku brought his hand up in time to catch the blow and twist my foot painfully to the side. I shrieked again as I felt my ankle heat up and make a sickening snapping sound. His hand then slid up my leg and pressed against my shorts.  
  
"I can't sense the Shard in you anymore, hanyou," he hissed, leaning back down at me. I tried to sit up, but he pressed his free hand against one of my breasts and pushed me backwards until I was pinned against the mattress. I writhed but it was no use - it only made my ankle hurt worse. "But that doesn't mean it's not worth a try..."  
  
I felt rather than saw his hand slide up over my pelvis to the waistband of my shorts, and heard the tearing of the cloth as he pulled it away. A pang of heat throbbed in my abdomen and I clenched my eyes shut.  
  
Oh, God. Not again. Please...  
  
I felt the hand on my breast squeeze once, then slip upwards to my throat, where it gripped momentarily, as if to remind me that there was enough strength there to crush my windpipe in an instant, them up to cover my mouth. He pressed on my jaw, forcing my head back, exposing the tender and sensitive flesh of my neck.  
  
"This time," he said softly, and I could hear the musky rasp that Kouga always got in his voice when we had been kissing too much, the rasp that warned me that he was aroused. "This time, I think I'll make you enjoy it. What do you think about that?"  
  
I tried to shake my head, the tears finally winning out and slipping down my temples and into my hair.  
  
"You like this body," Naraku continued, and slid said body upwards, against me. I could feet the rough scratch of Kouga's sweater through my flimsy hospital gown, and beneath that, the hard warmth of his chest and hips. I moaned pitifully.  
  
I liked Kouga's body all right. There was definitely nothing wrong with it, and I had had fantasies enough about the moment he hovered over me, tasting, nipping his way up my stomach and chest until his beautiful blue eyes met mine and he swept down to steal a kiss. But I did not think it wold be like this, a mad man in control of his strong and well toned limbs, the eyes boring into mine red and not blue.  
  
I sobbed briefly. I could feel his hand below, teasing, trying to make my body yearn for him, for his intruding hand. It made me want to kill him. Slowly, more painfully than I ever would have before.  
  
But could I kill him when he wore Kouga's face? When he kissed me with Kouga's lips? When it was Kouga's silky tail resting on my leg?  
  
He was smiling, and I didn't know what to do.  
  
And then suddenly I felt it - the flare of warmth in my tummy that I had mistaken for arousal... the power of the Shikon no Tama! Of COURSE!  
  
I had used it to wish my mother and I into the past, despite it's not being in my body... why couldn't I use it to fight back this monster? Why couldn't I do what I had heard the Miko Kagome had done, and blast him to oblivion with the purifying power of the mystical gem?  
  
But to do that, I would need time to concentrate - and for that, I would need to be distanced from Naraku's hands. I couldn't kick him off me, he was too strong and had my legs pinned. My fists would be useless against the youkai-hard skin of my Kouga.  
  
I was down to my last option.  
  
Once more apologizing to Kouga in my mind, I opened my mouth and kissed one of Naraku's fingers. He jumped slightly, then chuckled. "Little slut," he whispered, and I could hear the smile in his voice. As I was hoping he would, he pressed his fingers down, into my mouth. I sucked on them, laving them briefly with my tongue.  
  
And then I bit down. Hard.  
  
Naraku screamed and wrenched his hand out of my mouth, blood spraying in all directions. I had not severed the digits, my jaw wasn't that strong, but I had sharp hanyou teeth, and that had done damage enough. Naraku yanked himself away, cradling his hand, and I squirmed out from under him and ran for the door, the adrenaline giving me the strength to stand.  
  
He caught me by the hair before I was halfway across the room and pulled me backwards, flinging me around and slamming me into the chair that Kouga always sat in. He crawled up onto the chair as well, pushing on my shoulder until I was horizontal on the seat, my legs dangling awkwardly over the side. He pressed himself and his burrowing hand between my legs once more, the other hand rising to his own mouth.  
  
I watched with mild revulsion as he sucked the puncture wounds until I knew his mouth was full of blood. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine and although I tried to turn away desperately, he managed to slip is tongue out between his lips and into my mouth. I gagged at the coppery taste and he let the blood trickle down his tongue and fill my mouth. I tried desperately to not swallow, but he pressed his injured hand against my adam's apple and I had no choice.  
  
He removed his mouth and I could see the fresh gore trailing down his chin, the self-satisfied smile on his lips. I wanted to vomit, bu I couldn't. I was too scared. There was no way to escape him!  
  
I screwed my eyes shut again and delved deep into my psyche - yes, there it as, the small pulsing magenta warmth. I grabbed onto it with all that I had, pulling my emotional and mental self away from my abused body.   
  
Deep inside me I could see it, the small warm ball of pink glass that throbbed and pulsed with power. I cradled it to me, whispering to it, crying. "Help me," I said over and over again, "Please I know there's not a lot of you, but help me... help me save my mother... help me save the man I love..."  
  
"The man you love is a youkai," I heard a strange and resonant female voice say beside me, and inside the darkness of my soul, I spun around in my mind to find a lovely young woman in archaic warrior's regalia and long black hair staring at me. She was surrounded with a shimmering magenta glow, and there was a deep hold in her chest, right above her heart. The hole was not bleeding, nor did it look like it pained her.  
  
"Who are you?" I asked softly, ignoring the pain of the rape that I knew my body was feeling. I had to shut it out. I had to CONCENTRATE.  
  
"My name is Midoriko," the woman said, and her voice was like a soft summer breeze. "And I am the mother of the Shikon no Tama."  
  
"Mother," I echoed, confused.  
  
"The Shikon no Tama was born from my body," she said, gesturing to her chest. I realized now that the hole must be where it had exploded outwards. I winced in sympathetic pain. "It's father was a demon I absorbed into myself to defeat. When it was evident that my physical form was too weak to contain us, I used my Miko powers to create the glass ball within my heart and trapped us both within to battle eternally. That is why the power of the Shikon no Tama can be used for both good and evil - using it for pure things, one draws upon my powers. Using it for impure things, one draws upon his."  
  
"And the power to grant wishes?" I asked hesitantly, still clutching the circle of warmth to me.  
  
"The is our power combined," Midoriko said softly.  
  
I shook my head, still confused. "But why are you here, then? Inside of me? I thought Inu Yasha absorbed the Shikon no Tama – isn't it gone?"  
  
"The Shikon no Tama cannot cease to exist," Midorkio replied, and it struck me how eerily still she was. Most people, when they stand still, at least sway a little - she did not. "It can only be reborn elsewhere."  
  
With this she took a step forward and placed her hand flat against my abdomen, where I had always felt the warmth before.  
  
"But...!" I insisted. "The Shards! They're gone!"  
  
"The Shards you were born with, yes," Midoriko agreed, "But when you passed through time, the Shikon no Tama, which was also lingering in the realm of the unborn, latched onto you and returned to this realm of reality with you."  
  
"Why me?!" I insisted.  
  
"Because you are the descendant of Kagome," she said softly. "Who was the one to purify the Shikon no Tama at last and allow me to kill the gem's father and gain my freedom from it's crystal prison. It was also reborn in her."  
  
"But then, why Kagome?"   
  
"Because she is MY descendant."  
  
I gapped openly at Midoriko, who only smiled back. "I understand that this is a lot to synthesize, Aisilin Volpe, but you do not have the time to dally. You mother needs your aid, and the longer you linger here, the more that the demon Naraku sinks his claws into your youkai lover. Which incidentally, I find amusing."  
  
"Amusing?!" I snapped. "What's amusing about Naraku trying to take over Kouga's body!?"  
  
Midoriko allowed herself a small chuckle, and I saw that her body was beginning to fade away. "It's amusing that the child of so many youkai taijiya is in love with her natural born prey."  
  
"Kouga is different!" I insisted, even as I could begin to see through her.  
  
She chuckled again, this time sounding rather breathy and hollow. "I did not say he was not. But you do not have much time - purify him. Harness the power of the Shikon no Tama within you and purify your Wolf Prince. It is the only way to drive out Naraku and destroy him for certain."  
  
"Destroy him? Purify–! Wait! Tell me how to do that!"  
  
"I cannot, Aisilin Volpe. Your soul will tell you how."  
  
"Midoriko, wait!"  
  
But she was already gone.  
  
My soul would tell me how? I reached inside myself again, closing my hand over the pulsing magenta tama and whispered, "Okay. Purify him. I can do that."  
  
Then I opened my eyes to reality.  
  
Naraku was still on top of me. Without me knowing how, we had slid down onto the floor, and his eyes were on the crumpled body of my mother, even as he was thrusting into mine.  
  
Instead of screaming in pain and panic, as I wished to, I placed my hands firmly over his biceps, which caused him to pause and look down at me. Sweat ran down his face is rivulets, mingling with the blood, dripping down onto my face.  
  
"Get the HELL out of Kouga," I snarled, and the beginnings of a smile ghosted over his lips. He froze however, his eyebrows drawing downwards. He must have been able to feel the start of the power I was drawing into my hands. My soul would know, Midoriko had said, and this is what I knew: I wanted to shoot the bastard, and what better way that to mimic his own energy-throwing power. "Get out NOW, or else."  
  
"Or else what?" he asked, but I could see the apprehension growing on his face.  
  
I let loose a grin of my own, the one that I had learned from Uncle Sesshoumaru. It had the proper effect, and he scrambled backwards quickly, pulling out of me painfully, but I didn't care. He was off me and that's what was important.  
  
And then I let it loose.  
  
Naraku screamed, but I did not fear for Kouga as he was picked up bodily by the white and pink arcs of lighting fire and thrown into the wall opposite. I stood, still pouring on the power, then released it. I leaned against the bed heavily, panting. This was energy consuming! Already I felt more exhausted than I ever had been in the last half a year.  
  
Naraku slid down the wall, and managed to land on his feet, but he too was panting and straining at something, his arms crossed over his belly as if tryign to keep hi innards from spilling out, even though there was no physical injury.  
  
"Listen, fucktard," I said slowly and succinctly and behind Kouga's eyes I could see Naraku's flames licking upwards, "You're on my turf now and if you THINK that I'm going to let you hurt anyone around me every again, you've certainly got another thing coming."  
  
I raised my hand, palms upwards, and a small glowing speck of magenta appeared, cradled between my fingers. Kouga's eyes widened.  
  
"Oh, don't fucking tell me you're SURPRISED, Mr. I-Torture-People-Cause-It's-Fun. I'm descended from at LEAST three different Mikos, two taiyoukai princes, and let's not forget to mention, Midoriko herself. AND, in case you've gone and forgotten our little moment of intimacy, you jack, I once cradled and nurtured a part of the Shikon no Tama itself inside my own BODY." I grinned and I could see him swallow. Enough was enough. All this bullshit ended NOW. "You didn't REALLY think I couldn't manipulate it's power? You're a goddamned idiot."  
  
Of course I wasn't telling him that it had chosen to be reborn inside of me. That would be pointless.  
  
I pushed my hand towards him, palm first, cutting off any reply he would have made. Magenta light blasted out of me, channelled and directed by my arm in his direction. I could feel the warmth of the Shikon's power and protection being sucked out of the veins, but took solace in the knowledge that what felt like warmth leaving my body was like fire burning through his.  
  
I wasn't breathing, however. I was holding my breath, concentrating on shoving every divine bit of me at his form, and eventually I had to cut off the feed again to regain my breath. Naraku, still in Kouga's body, lay spread-eagled, flat on his back, on the floor. His clothes were mostly burnt away, his hair and eyebrows singed.  
  
I felt a pang of sweeping guilt for hurting Kouga, but his had to be done.  
  
I bent over, panting, collecting my strength. When I was ready again I took a deep breath and raised my hand once more. I'd have to get it done this time, or I would fail. I didn't think I could rail the needed strength to go through this a fourth time - even for Kouga.  
  
"...you... you'll kill him..." I heard Naraku's raspy voice whisper, and I paused. Kouga's head lifted minutely and I met his eyes - they were no longer Naraku's flames behind Kouga's electricity. His eyes were now a burning and vengeful red.  
  
"No, I won't," I hissed. "I'm purifying his body, numbnuts, not killing the youkai. The only thing that's gonna die is you."  
  
With that I took another deep breath and blasted the shit out of him.  
  
~~~  
  
I sat up suddenly and looked around, shocked.   
  
Had I passed out?  
  
On the floor across the room, nude and slightly crispy (but still intact) was Kouga. I crawled over to him, ignoring my swimming head - I must have held my breath so long I'd passed out - and lifted his head into my lap.  
  
"Kouga?" I whispered, brushing his bangs off his soot-covered forehead.  
  
His eyelids fluttered once, twice, and then opened. His gaze, when he looked up at me, was filled with warmth and gratitude, and was a lovely shimmering blue.  
  
"Hey, cutie," he whispered, and his voice was harsh and broken sounding from his screams. Tears of pain collected in his lashes.  
  
"Hey yourself."  
  
"Nice shooting."  
  
"Why, thank you."  
  
Behind me I could hear my mother's groan as she began to stir, and was so relieved that everyone was all right, and that it was finally, FINALLY over, that I let myself cry.  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Notes:  
  
Well, there you go! Naraku got his ass kicked, and painfully, too, so I hope that makes a lot of people happy.  
  
I posted too fast to get a lot of review piled up, but I can answer these three.  
  
AND, "Spider" is at review 99! Just ONE more...!  
  
Reviews:  
  
Skitzoflame: Madness? ENd? When I'm the author? NEVER! Kukukukuuu!  
  
Lav: And ANOTHER chapter, no less! Welcome to my insanity.  
  
sashlea: I would lvoe to have my name known threethousand years from now. Glad you're reading Across TIme. FINALLY! A review for it! 


	14. Deja Vu

Wolf  
  
Part Fourteen, "Deja vu"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
Seven months later  
  
~~~  
  
I stood still, watching the young people go in and out of the fenced-off courtyard, dark hair flying in all directions, green skirts caught in the wind, smiles plastered on faces. The colours were tinted slightly violet, as I was peering through delicate purple shades so as to hide my vibrant blue eyes from the sea of dark ones around me.  
  
How happy the people on the other side of the street seemed. Why wouldn't they be? School just let out for the weekend.  
  
I flexed the fingers of my right hand briefly, feeling the new skin there ache dully in protest. In time it would cease to hurt when I moved, the doctors had said. In time, the surgically grafted skin would become more pliant, ease into the shape of my eviscerated appendage, mould itself around the withered tissue and grow slightly to make up for the pieces that were missing.  
  
It felt damn good to just be out of those bandages. I kept my sleeves long at all times now, to hide the scars, the cobwebby looking crisscrossing veins and stitches that kept my new skin in place. It scared people when they looked at it. Truth be told, it scared me too.  
  
Ah, what a miracle modern science is.  
  
And I felt damn lucky to have lived long enough to take advantage of it.  
  
The breeze shifted directions and my musings would have continued along the same vein, had I not spotted my quarry. She was smiling too, strolling out of the courtyard and onto the sidewalk, one hand wrapped around the shoulder strap of her knapsack. She was surrounded by other girls in the same uniform, the same age.  
  
I shoved my marred right hand into my pants pocket, pulling my sleeve low to hide the markings.  
  
Crossing the street quickly to keep up with her, I followed at a small distance as her and her group of friends walked down the street. Yes - this was her. I remembered the school uniform, had spent months trying to track down which school it was from, and then days watching the outside of said school.  
  
And here she was.  
  
We walked for maybe twenty minutes before her friends parted ways, and I had this girl to myself. As she turned into a park to take a short cut, I glanced around to make sure no one was following ME, and said, in a loud enough voice for her to hear me:  
  
"Miko-sama."  
  
The girl froze on the spot and turned to look behind her, finding me, with wary disbelief in her eyes. Beautiful blue-grey eyes, I mused. No wonder that Hanyou falls for her. Her hair was long and dark, her skin radiant and fresh. She was lovely in every sense of the word.  
  
And this was my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.  
  
I wondered if I had inherited any physical traits from her at all, or if time and other people's blood had diluted my genetics enough to posses little more than the brilliant shimmer of a Youkai's eyes, and a Shikon Shard.  
  
It felt almost surreal to be looking at her and knowing that 500 years ago she... we... I shook my head slightly to clear it of these thoughts. No, if I didn't hurry up and explain myself, I''d probably get a purifying arrow right through the heart.  
  
"Miko-sama," I said again, this time more quietly. She took a few steps forward, towards me, understandably hesitant.  
  
"Who are you?" she asked, her eyes narrowed, her head cocked to the side.  
  
I smiled, pleased to be able to understand her without the aid of any supernatural objects. My months in this country's various hospitals had not been spent in vain. "My name is Aslin," I said softly.  
  
"Have we met before?"   
  
I looked down at my feet, amused. "Do I seem familiar to you? I should, Miko-sama. I am the culmination of your love."  
  
"My... love?"  
  
I sighed and looked up at the trees to our left, allowing myself to be momentarily distracted by the meditative whisper of the rustling leaves and the faint twittering of the birds. "Five hundred years ago," I began, and I heard her footsteps get closer, "Five hundred years ago you are friends with a Hanyou. His name is Inu Yasha."  
  
She gasped and came around too look me in the eye. "How do you know about that?!"  
  
I smiled a third time, pressing forward despite her question. "You are also friends with a Houshin named Miroku, a Taiyjia named Sango, and a Kitsune Youkai named Shippou."  
  
She froze and just stared at me, her eyes and mouth wide with shock.  
  
I reached into my coat pocket and produced a shimmering magenta shard of crystal and held it up for her to see, pinched precariously between my thumb and forefinger.  
  
"Shikon Shard!" she gasped. I nodded, and pushed it into her hands. She took it with wonder on her face, then looked back up at mine. "Who ARE you?"  
  
"As I said, my name is Aslin, and, somewhere deep inside of me, I am part Youkai."  
  
"Hanyou?!"  
  
"Not quite," I shook my head, "not half-Youkai. Less than that. My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather was an Inu-Hanyou. He mated with a Miko, and their son married the daughter of a great warrior woman, and a man tainted with Youkai blood curse. Their daughter mated with a full-blooded Kitsune-Youkai, and they had a girl child as well. Do you follow me?"  
  
Kagome shook her head... then nodded slowly. She was chewing slightly on her bottom lip.  
  
"That made my great-great-great-grandmother a Hanyou, with more Youkai blood than Ningen. Slowly, through the generations, the Youkai blood thinned, until me. I am more Ningen than Youkai."  
  
"Your eyes shimmer like a Youkai's," she said slowly, choked up.   
  
"Hai, they do."   
  
She clutched the Shikon Shard against her breast, and I could see the faint outline of the half-complete Shikon No Tama pressing back through the fabric of her shirt. "Why are you telling me this?"  
  
"That Shikon Shard has been passed down from generation to generation, from the body of mother to daughter. It was placed inside the womb of the warrior woman who is my ancestor to negate the curse that the father carried and would have been passed onto the child. Every girl-child born tho this line inherits the Shikon Shard, and passes it on to her daughter. But, Kagome Higurashi," he eyes widened again and I paused for a small chuckle, "Yes, I know your name. But... it is time that the Shikon Shard went back to where it was supposed to go."  
  
"To me?" Kagome's hands spasmed over the crystal shard, and I knew that she was afraid I would take it away from her.  
  
"No," I said softly, turning and walking away a few steps. Then I stopped and look back over my shoulder. "To my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Keep it safe, Miko-sama, and give it to Sango-sama when you get back."  
  
Then I began walking, wanting to turn and look at the shock that must be dancing across Kagome's features, but refrained. I didn''t want to stop to chat. I didn't want to accidentally change my past by revealing too much more. I knew that this, for the sake not messing up history, was the one and only time I could see Kagome, and I had to be quick and efficient.  
  
And dramatic.  
  
But who doesn't enjoy dramatic exits?  
  
"Ch-hotto! Matte!" I heard Kagome cry out, but I merely pried my right hand from my pants pocket and waved. The motion caused my sleeve to slip down, the soft fabric pooling at my crooked elbow. The cool autumn air stung the tender and raw tissue, and I knew that she could see the blackened and scarred flesh that traced the appendage. "Your arm...! Matte! I remember you! You were in Kouga's den that first time...! Matte yo!"  
  
Ducking around a corner, my face all smiles, I ran all the way back to my great-grandmother's house, where my date for the evening was waiting for me.  
  
The wind in my hair was fresh. 


	15. Fantasy

Wolf  
  
Part Fifteen: "Fantasy"  
  
by Vega  
  
"What's this?" Kouga smiled roguishly as he handed me one last wrapped present.  
  
The Kekkon Hiroen, or Wedding Reception, as the Americanized term would have it - although it was far more colourful and festive than an American one - was long over and my husband and I sat alone on the polished wooden floor of our new little house.  
  
We were exhausted, both from the festivities, and from the chore of opening all our gifts afterwards. Not to mean that I didn't appreciate everything everyone did for us (Uncle Sess even paid for our honeymoon!), but I was tired and our flight out to Ireland left early in the morning.  
  
Kouga wanted to see if Celtic Wolf Youkai were any different from the Japanese ones, as he had read so many myths about them in the past few years, and he had never travelled to Ireland before. I had readily agreed, forcing him to promise to take me to Lock Ness to see if the Monster was really a youkai.  
  
So to be fair, Kouga and I had opened everything that night, after the reception was over. It felt strange to be opening the Shugi-bukuru envelopes with the Oshugi inside - that is, a monetary gift from those who attended the elaborate and very formal reception. I had grown up accustomed to the idea that friends showed up to party with you, maybe paid for their drinks, and gave you a new set of drinking glasses for the home you were to set up together.  
  
In Japan, it seemed, the idea was that you were to try to get the happy couple on their feet financially, which was nice too. And with all those old and powerful relatives, we ended up counting out more money than I'd ever know what to do with in my whole life.  
  
What was nice was that we were able to afford a really lovely yellow embroidered haoiri-hakama for Kouga to wear (yellow being the traditional colour of royalty), and the three wonderful traditional kimono I wore as well. For the ceremony I wore the pearle and silver embroidered white shiromuku, symbol of purity, and for the reception I wore the complete obi-bound red kimono of happiness. For the third, which I changed into before Kouga and I slipped into his car and drove home, was a delicate powdery blue that complimented his haori-hakama, bound with a golden obi and shot through with pink and a pattern of a Sakura Tree bending low and dipping their branches into the river that was my sleeves.  
  
We were also able to cover the costs for the Hikidemono, expensive gifts of clocks, sugar, and the like to those who had come to visit us. It really confused my American friends when I handed them each a little sack of pure white sugar and bowed low to them, thanking them formally for attending my reception (as only family is invited to the ceremony). I had to explain to them that sugar was a symbol of prosperity and happiness and they promised to turn it in to very happy-educing sugar shots after I had left.  
  
I was very happy to have my American friends come overseas to attend. It made my Mom happy to have other English-speakers there, and I caught more than one of my various Youkai and Hanyou cousins with their brilliant eyes following the loud western girls in their bright prom dresses spin across the dance floor.  
  
Mom was still having some trouble adjusting to the fact that I had chosen to spend the rest of my life with a Demon, but the more conversations she had with Uncle Sess and Great-Grandmother, the more comfortable around them she seemed.  
  
I hoped that one day she would accept our family entirely, but I knew I shouldn't hold my breath. At least she was civil at the ceremony, and for once no one mentioned the wolf-torn corpse of Amphitrion that had been found in an alley a few blocks away from the hospital.  
  
It really pained Kouga that he had lost his friend, and worse still, that it had been his own teeth and hands that had torn the man apart, despite the fact that it had been Naraku in control. He had vomited for days when he realized that he had actually consumed some of his friend's flesh, and I had not left his side.  
  
But we had more joyous things to contemplate now.  
  
I had even kept one other Hikidemono to give to Kagome, whom I had noticed hovering around the entrance to the reception hall and trying to look like she blended in. I had kissed Kouga briefly, then slipped through the crowd to where I had sensed her (yay for the Shikon no Tama and all the cool powers that came with it). She looked at me, surprised, when I smiled, bowed and handed her the gift.  
  
"Thank you for coming, Miko-sama," I said, and she bowed low and accepted the little bundle from me.  
  
"I got the invitation, but I had no clue who it was from," she admitted. Then her eyes widened. "You have the Shikon no Tama! I can feel it!"  
  
I nodded slowly and placed a hand over my middle. "I inherited it from you, Miko-sama."  
  
She looked slightly bemused. "So you are my ... my great-granddaughter?"  
  
"Well," I laughed, "There are a lot more 'greats' before it, but yes, I am."  
  
"Oh," she said, and smiled slightly. "I wonder who I married, then."  
  
"Inu Yasha," I said firmly, "and not Kouga. In fact, when you go back there, I forbid you from even looking sideways at Kouga, or I'll come back and knock you senseless."  
  
She blinked in confusion. "Eh? Why's that?"   
  
I pulled her arm gently and maneuvered her around the dancing crowd to the side wall where she could get a look at my bridegroom. She sputtered and choked for a moment before finally hissing out, "Kouga-kun!?"  
  
"Righto," I smiled, "and he's mine."  
  
Her own face split into a smile, and she embraced me without warning. The wounds from a year earlier were all long healed, but I was still tender none the less. "Congratulations!"  
  
I laughed and dragged her over to meet my husband, and we spent a happy hour chatting about the Feudal Era before she had to go home - she was leaving early in the morning to go see Inu Yasha. I made her promise not to tell anyone about any of this until they safely had grandkids of their own, and she agreed.  
  
Shortly after that, Kouga and I also excused ourselves and headed home to unwrap presents and count our monetary gifts.  
  
With the left over money from the gifts, Kouga talked about renovating his old den, giving it hardwood floors and a little Peter-Pan-esque chimney and selling the tiny home he held in the city. He missed the mountains terribly and I had to agree that they had some charm. And, with the cars we had now, it was only an hour or so's drive to a metropolis!  
  
Looking at the pile of things spread all around us, I was sure we had gone through all of the presents, the crock pots and new dishes, towels and bedclothes, silver candlesticks and brasiers, tatami mats and lovely china and pottery sake sets, and all sorts of other strange occultish items from the Other part of the family. And yet, here was another, clearly bearing my name and only my name on the wrapper.  
  
I narrowed my eyes at my mate, and he merely waggled his eyebrows at me. I took it gingerly. It was slim, probably onto a few fingers high, but it was wide. Kouga scooched forward until he was right up next to me, his bare legs pressed against mine as he pilled me into the little 'v' of his legs, his arms wrapping around my waist and his nose snuffling in my hair.  
  
"What are you doing?" I giggled slightly at the ticklish sensations of air whiffing in and out on my head and he bent down and licked my cheek playfully. Behind him I could see his tail wagging back and forth slowly.  
  
"Open it," he breathed.  
  
"Someone's suddenly gotten a second wind," I teased, and he just mm-hmmed and tugged at my shirt collar with his teeth. I set down the present and he sort of whimpered, his tail thudding once against the floor. "Oh, all right, you big baby."  
  
I unwrapped the gift, being slow on purpose, as he did his best to give me the world's biggest wolf-hickey. When I finally got all the rice paper off, it was a black shiny clothing box.   
  
"A box, how lovely!" I set this down, and he started to growl this time, his teeth clamping down on that tender little spot just underneath my ear. "Ouch! Okay, okay!" I picked up the box, slit the tape holding it closed with my thumbnail and flipped back the lid.  
  
"Oooh!" I breathed and he stopped nibbling long enough to rest his chin on my shoulder and watch me with amused, glittering eyes. I couldn't tell what it was, but it was made out of blood red velvet - I dared to touch it and realized that it was REAL velvet. "Oh, KOUGA!"   
  
I pulled the thing out of the tissue paper protecting it and stood up abruptly, trying to shake it out so I could get a better look at what it was. Kouga nearly went face-first into the floor when I stood up so fast, and recovered by trying to make it look like he had just been stooping to pick up the now-empty box and set it aside.   
  
I managed to get the cloth all turned around the wrong way and Kouga sighed, stood, and took it from me. He swung it over my shoulders and around, clasping over my left breast with a sparkling wolf's head silver broach. The eyes were made from a dazzling blue stone that I knew were probably real sapphires.  
  
I took a step away from him and looked down at myself.   
  
It was a cloak!  
  
I did a little twirl, seeing that it flared out beautifully. The edges were embroidered with silver piping to match the brooch and it was lined with silver satin. It fell to just behind my knees and it even had a hood!  
  
I pulled this up to cover my head, and realized that it was a little deep, because I could no longer see for all the fabric in the way. I heard Kouga's footsteps as he came over and I grinned at him, knowing he could at least see my mouth.  
  
That mouth was startled with a quick kiss that nipped my bottom lip, before his hands slid around my hips to grasp my bottom and hold me close. I blushed as one hand slid up my spine and he pushed back the hood. He was humming something under his breath, and I couldn't tell what it was.  
  
"Thank you," I whispered, "it's lovely. You didn't have to get this for me, but I love it."  
  
"Oh, I didn't buy that for you," he smiled back, teeth moving up to nip my nose, my cheek, an eyebrow.  
  
"You didn't?"  
  
His humming got louder as he shook his head 'no'. "This is entirely for me..."  
  
"I don't get it," I said, and his hands started wandering again. I writhed happily.  
  
It was then that I could make out what song it was he was muttering under his breath:  
  
"Little Red Riding Hood... you sure are lookin' good... you're everythan' that a Big Bad Wolf can want..."  
  
~~~  
  
Author's Note:  
  
Okay, I'll admit it. That scene was TOTALLY inspired by the Red Riding Hood picture by Vale on this website: http://home.earthlink.net/~latinoco/Thunk/Misc.htm#anchor  
  
  
  
And ever since I started writing this series, I can't get that song out of my head! 


	16. Puppies

Wolf  
  
Part Sixteen: "Puppies"  
  
by Vega  
  
~~~  
  
Three Years Later  
  
~~~  
  
"Ginta!" Kouga shouted out the mouth of the den, his hands cupped around his mouth. "GINTA!"  
  
I came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't shout yourself blue in the face."  
  
He shook his head, his hands dropping to his sides, and turned to face me. "Geeze, I'm just gonna nail that kid's tail to the floor."  
  
"So he likes to roam. He's a youkai, don't worry. If he eats something he shouldn't, he'll get sick and learn better for next time. If he attacks something too strong for him, he'll get hurt and know better next time. Besides, we're the scariest thing on the mountain right now."  
  
"Keh," Kouga snorted, "since when did you start using Wolf Youkai logic?"  
  
I stood up on my tip toes and gave him a quick kiss. "Since I started living with one."  
  
"Mamaaaa!" Hakkaku screeched from the back of the cave and I sighed, lowering myself.   
  
"Yes, honey?"  
  
"Kagome's LOOKIN' at me."  
  
"I am NOT!"  
  
"Are too! You're lookin' at ME."  
  
"You both have eyes!" Kouga snapped. "You both are looking. What sort of foolishness is this?"  
  
The two pups looked suitably ashamed and I smacked my mate's hip lightly.  
  
"Oh, fine," he sighed and walked over to them. He sat in between them and said, "There. Now you can both look at Papa instead."  
  
I laughed as both the pups grinned identical maniacal, fang bearing smiles, and pounced. Hakkaku went straight for his father's tail, while Kagome opted for his ears. Kouga yelped, growled momentarily, then let forth a deep belly laugh and began to play wrestle on the stone floor.  
  
I sighed, smiling, shaking my head and wrapping my arms around myself. What I family I had.   
  
We vacationed up here in the wilderness often - Kouga had yet to start his grand plans of renovating the Den, and I don't know if he ever will get to it. He loves it the way it is, and so do I. We unblocked the river above us, so the waterfall once more flowed over the secret entrance to the cave, but we made sure to narrow the channel so the kids could hop in at a dry spot to avoid the risk of them slipping.  
  
What a trio I had - triplets, of course, because wolves rarely have a single pup.  
  
Ginta, Hakkaku, Kagome.  
  
I was jolted from my musings by a polite "ahem" behind me. I turned to find that, standing just inside the doorway, was my Uncle Sesshoumaru, Ginta tucked safely under his arm. My son didn't seem to happy about it, of course, and I could see that the elder Taiyoukai had a firm grip on the base of his tail.   
  
"I believe this belongs to you, Aisilin-kun?"  
  
I held my hands out and Ginta scrambled into my arms. I set him down with a little push towards the growling and yipping pile of flesh and fur that was still writhing on the floor and he dove in with abandon.  
  
Sesshoumaru cocked an eyebrow at the display, shook his head minutely and said, "Wolves."  
  
I shrugged. "My fault for marrying him, of course."  
  
"Ah, which brings me to the reason I'm here," Uncle Sess turned his attention to the inside pocket of his blazer and removed a small rectangular package. "This, niece, is for you. It was found when Yuki-kun was cleaning the attic, and she would like you to have it."  
  
I narrowed my eyes at the plain brown paper, the white cotton string, the sellotape, as if I had x-ray vision, but of course, I didn't. I settled on untying the string and ripping the paper back.  
  
It was a journal, bound in a dark green leather.  
  
Underneath my thumb was ornate gilt writing, and I slid it over to read:  
  
Journal  
  
Okami Volpe  
  
I gasped and clasped it to my chest, looking up at Uncle Sess. "Is this... really...?"  
  
He nodded, a glimmer of a smile shining through is regular detached mask. He was saved from saying anything by the screaming shouts of my children:  
  
"Play with us, Uncle Sesshou!"  
  
  
  
"I'll pin ya for sure this time!"   
  
" I wanna learn to shoot a bow a' arrow! Teach me teach me!"  
  
"Can I pet your fluffy?!"  
  
"Did you bring CANDY?!"  
  
I took the opportunity of distraction to scuttle over to Kouga, who was lying on the floor, covered with dirt and scuffs, one of his cheeks bleeding slightly from an over-enthusiastic scratch, and a bemused smile on his face. I helped him to his feet and he shook his head to loosen all the dust that had gotten into his hair.  
  
"Inu Yasha hated it when Sesshoumaru-sama did that," he said, jerking his head to indicate the now-crouching taiyoukai handing out sweets. "Got the pups all riled up and then left Inu Yasha and Kagome to deal with the aftermath. I used to laugh. Now I see what pissed the mutt-face off so much. We'll never get them to bed tonight."  
  
I laughed. "Oh? And what's so important about them being asleep tonight."  
  
He lifted one eyebrow, turning his head minutely, and I could see, tucked in the back of the pile of sleeping bags on his stage-like pallet, was a little peek of red velvet.  
  
"You're incorrigible," I whispered. He planted a kiss on my cheek, then walked away to try to do damage control with the kids and Uncle Sess. I watched the men in my family try to talk Kagome into having an arm-wrestle match with the taiyoukai and smiled.  
  
Yes. This was a good place to be.  
  
Trusting the boys to play nice with my girl, I went and sat on one of the sleeping bags and started to flip through the journal. About halfway through, Kouga's name caught my eye and I flipped back.  
  
My breath caught in my throat I read:  
  
  
  
"I am Kouga, Prince of the Western Wolf Tribe," he said solemnly, and I was suitably impressed, "and I wanted to make sure you were who I thought you were before I approached you."  
  
"And am I?"  
  
"Are you the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the xxx Inu Yasha?"  
  
I nodded again, confused. I wondered if I had just sealed my own doom by saying yes.  
  
"Then you are exactly who I think you are." This Prince Kouga studied me again and this time I saw that he was searching my face for something. "Ah, yes, you have your uncle's cheekbones... your line always does. But here," he reached out and tapped my temple gently with one sharp-nailed finger. It looked like a claw. "Is Kagome. The corner of your eyes crinkle up when you smile at that woman you like, just like hers did."  
  
Kagome, I knew, was the name of my ancestor Inu Yasha's wife, and I was stunned. This man KNEW Kagome!  
  
"You... were friends with Inu Yasha and Kagome?" I breathed, blown away.  
  
The corner of Kouga's lips twitched upwards.  
  
"I was Inu Yasha's rival for Kagome." He shrugged. "But the mutt-face won, what can I say? I'm not here about that," he added hastily. I think he saw the fear on my face - I thought maybe he had been looking for me to fight! You know, avenge his soiled honour and all that. "I'm here about you."  
  
"W-what about me?"  
  
He smiled again and leaned across the table so that he could whisper to me. "I'm here to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage."  
  
I blinked at him for a few seconds, then started to laugh. He smiled again, but didn't chuckle along with me.  
  
"My daughter!" I echoed jovially. "I don't have a kid!"  
  
"Not yet," he said softly.  
  
"Why do you want to ask if you can marry my daughter? Before I've even had one? How can you be sure I WILL have one? What if I have all boys? What if I don't get married at all?"  
  
Kouga shook his head minutely, as if amused. "You will have a daughter, Volpe-san, because I've already met her."  
  
I paused, letting the implications of that sink in.   
  
Bingo - then it hit me.  
  
"The Traveller is my kid!?"  
  
Kouga nodded.  
  
"Wait, so why are you asking me now?" I asked, "Why not wait until she's, I dunno, thirty?"  
  
He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back. "You won't be around then, Volpe-san. I don't want to give too much away, but she told me that you left when she was very young."  
  
"I would never walk away from my kid!" I snapped, suddenly angry. What sort of bastard did he think I was?!  
  
He sighed softly. "The way she said it, Volpe-san... I don't think she meant that you walked out on her."  
  
I paused again.  
  
I'm going to die, I realized. I'm going to die before my daughter is old enough to get married. The thought made me want to burst into tears right then and there. I didn't. I held them in. I looked up at Kouga slowly.  
  
"So you want my permission now? How do I know that she'll even love you?"  
  
His face sort of... twisted... I think I hit a sore spot. "I love her," was all he said. "She is my woman. I only thought it honourable to talk to you, first. But I will make her mine, with or without your blessing."  
  
I sighed as he stood up and snatched his leather duster off the back of his chair. He was right pissed. "Kouga-sama," I said, and he stopped and turned to look at me. "I can't say that I know enough about you to say yes or no, but if my daughter loves you, and only IF ... then yes, you have my permission."  
  
I slammed the book shut, my breathing hard, and tears pooling in my eyes. Kouga and Sesshoumaru looked over at me with the sound. The kids hadn't noticed. I dropped the journal onto my lap and buried my face in my hands.  
  
  
  
I heard Kouga's footsteps on the stone, then his warm arms were around me.  
  
"I love you," I whispered.  
  
He just smiled and leaned down to lick the tears off my cheek.  
  
"Of course you do."  
  
"Arrogant fathead."  
  
"I am. And I never stopped loving you back. Not once."  
  
I sniffled. "Never?"  
  
"Never."  
  
And then I had my arms around him, and his warm smooth lips were pressing against mine, and I could hear our children's laughter across the room.  
  
And you know what?  
  
Just then, my life seemed pretty damn good.  
  
~OWARI~ 


End file.
